The Council took note of the Italian Presidency conclusions on the budgetary issues and on the request to the Commission to submit a proposal for amendment of regulation on the VAT- and GNI- based own resources, pursuant to Article 10, paragraphs 4 to 8 of Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000.
In particular due to the major revisions of the GNI of several Member States, their additional contributions to the EU budget will be substantial. In addition, the regulatory delay until the payment date of the first working day of December is short. This may result in exceptionally high fiscal implications for those Member States.
The Council therefore invited the Commission to come forward with a proposal for a targeted and limited amendment to the Council Regulation No 1150/2000 to take account of such exceptional circumstances. This should allow for the Member State concerned to defer the required payment over a reasonable period of time (no later than 1 September). For the sake of equal treatment of all Member States, deferral should then be an option for all if the overall sum of the GNI balances is exceptionally high.
Taken into account the tight deadlines, this amendment should come into effect by the 1 December 2014 (retroactively if needed).
At the same time, recognising the need to address the unprecedented increase of unpaid claims across all headings and programmes in the EU budget, the Council agreed to work constructively, including the use of the flexibility instruments agreed in the MFF 2014-2020, to adopt a position on the draft amending budgets for 2014 in a timely manner, while recalling the position already adopted by the Council on the draft budget for 2015.