The European Parliament adopted by 490 votes to 115, with 9 abstentions, a resolution aiming to approve, without amendment, the Council position on Draft amending budget No 6/2011 of the European Union for the financial year 2011, Section III – Commission.
The resolution recalls that the Council has modified Draft amending budget No 6/2011 by decreasing to EUR 200 million the total net reinforcement in payment appropriations although the Parliament has persistently stressed, throughout the entire 2011 budgetary procedure, that the overall level of payments advocated by the Council and adopted for the financial year 2011 was insufficient and would not enable all clearly agreed needs to be met. It states that part of the revenue increase stems from fines and interest on late payments totalling EUR 435 million, i.e. from the enforcement of competition policy.
Parliament deeply regrets the climate of mistrust prevailing during the negotiations between the Commission and the Member States as to the level of extra payment appropriations needed in 2011 for the Commission to be able to fulfil the legal obligations of the Union. It requests the Commission to communicate to the two arms of the budgetary authority and to the public in general, what are the consequences of this agreement on the implementation of ongoing programmes. It is particularly concerned about the effects of this decision on the running of structural and cohesion funds in the Member States, along with key programmes under the heading ‘Sustainable growth’.
The resolution underlines that the Council's approach is at odds with the processes of the European Semester and a strengthened European economic governance whereby synergies and complementarities between the Union and the national budgets should be sought. Parliament is all the more concerned by the stance of the Council since, if the Union is to recover from the current economic and social crisis, forward-looking investments need to be supported. In this regard, it expresses its willingness to take part, together with the Council and the Commission, in a stocktaking exercise in order to address potential shortcomings and shortfalls in the implementation of the current multiannual programmes, particularly those under subheadings 1a and 1b.
Parliament reiterates its firm conviction that part of the revenue stemming from fines and interest on late payments, i.e. from the enforcement of competition policy, which is an exclusive Union competence, should be directly put back and reinvested in the Union budget and not returned to the Member States in the context of the balance.