Amending budget 1/2012: financing of ITER

PURPOSE: to present the Draft Amending Budget (DAB) No 1 for the year 2012 concerning the financing of ITER.

CONTENT: Draft Amending Budget (DAB) No 1 for the year 2012 concerns the financing of ITER, and incorporates into the 2012 Budget, the amount of EUR 650 million in commitment appropriations, onto budget article 08 20 02 Euratom – European Joint Undertaking for ITER – Fusion for Energy (F4E), in accordance with the agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council in December 2011. 

To recall, on 1 December 2011, agreement was reached in trilogue on the financing of the EUR 1 300 million additional cost of the ITER project in 2012-2013 as follows:

• EUR 100 million already included in the 2012 budget on the ITER budget lines;
• EUR 360 million in commitment appropriations will be made available in the 2013 budget procedure within the MFF commitment appropriations ceilings making full use of the provisions laid down in the Financial Regulation and in the IIA of 17 May 2006, excluding any further ITER related revision of the MFF;
• The ceilings for commitment appropriations of Heading 1a for the years 2012 and 2013 will be increased by an amount of EUR 840 million, of which EUR 650 million in 2012 and EUR 190 million in 2013. This increase will be offset by a corresponding decrease of the ceilings for commitment appropriations of Heading 2 (EUR 450 million for the year 2011) and Heading 5 (EUR 243 million for the year 2011 and EUR 147 million for the year 2012);
• The 2013 ceiling for total payment appropriations will be increased by EUR 580 million offset by a corresponding decrease in the 2011 ceiling.

This political agreement was subsequently adopted by the European Parliament and the Council in December 2011, by a decision of 13 December 20112, according to their respective internal procedures.

Now that the ceiling of Heading 1a has been increased for 2012, it is possible to enter the relevant commitment appropriations of EUR 650 million onto the budget article 08 20 02 Euratom – European Joint Undertaking for ITER – Fusion for Energy (F4E).

This is the aim of this draft amending budget 1/2012.