PURPOSE: presentation of a new Draft General
Budget for 2015.
CONTENT: in the absence of agreement in the
Conciliation Committee, the Commission now submits a new Draft
Budget 2015.
Background to the budgetary procedure: in accordance with the provisions laid down by the
Lisbon Treaty:
- on 24 June 2014, the Commission transmitted the Draft
Budget for 2015 in all the official languages;
- on 2 September 2014, Council completed its reading of
the Draft Budget;
- on 22 October 2014, the European Parliament voted its
reading. As the European Parliament adopted amendments to the Draft
Budget, which could not be accepted by the Council, a
Conciliation Committee was convened, in accordance with Article
314 §4(c) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European
Union (TFEU).
The Conciliation Committee worked over a period of
twenty-one days, between 28 October and 17 November 2014. Although
significant progress was made during the discussions, including as
regards the acceptance of the need to mobilise the Contingency
Margin for payment appropriations in 2014, it was not possible
to reconcile the positions of the European Parliament and Council
within the time period allowed, in particular with regard to the
level of payment appropriations to meet outstanding payment needs
for 2014. This prevented reaching an agreement on the 2015 budget,
as well as on Draft Amending Budget No 2/2014, No 3/2014, No 4/2014, No 5/2014 and No 7/2014 as all these were
considered as a package by the European Parliament and
Council.
A new Draft Budget 2015:
in the absence of agreement in the Conciliation Committee, the
Commission now submits a new Draft Budget 2015, in accordance with
Article 314 §8 of the TFEU. The Commission is seeking to
reconcile the positions of the two arms of the Budgetary Authority
in this proposal for a new Draft Budget, without recourse to a
further period of Conciliation.
The consequences of non-agreement on the budget would
be the recourse to provisional twelfths in 2015, with detrimental effects on the implementation of
key policies and programmes and would send a damaging message to
the citizens of Europe at a time of economic
uncertainty.
With this imperative of reaching a timely adoption of
the 2015 budget, the Commission proposal for a new Draft Budget for
2015 builds on the progress made on budget 2015 in the Conciliation
Committee, which to a large extent restored the Commissions
original Draft Budget, as amended by Amending Letter No 1/2015, in
particular for commitments, though with a lower level for
payments.
This proposal also takes into account recent
discussions and proposals to maximise the contribution of the EU
budget to economic growth. In this regard, the proposal for a new
Draft Budget is focused on supporting in particular those policies
in favour of competitiveness and economic convergence, thus
contributing to growth and jobs, as well as those budget lines
which allow Europe to address crises especially in its
neighbourhood. It also reflects the 10 priority policy areas set
out in the political guidelines for the new Commission, such as
boosting jobs, growth and investment, connecting the digital single
market, increasing the resilience of the energy supply while
fighting against global warming, securing Europe's borders and
having a stronger Europe when it comes to foreign
policy.
The Commissions new budget
proposals:
In terms of commitment
appropriations, the total expenditure
proposed in the new Draft Budget (DB) 2015 (including special
instruments) is EUR 145 226.3 million, corresponding to 1.04%
of GNI, that is EUR 2 536 million more than in 2014 (+
1.8%), when including Draft Amending Budgets No 3/2014 and No 8/2014, and leaves a
combined total margin of EUR 1 855.3 million under the various
ceilings of the MFF.
For payment appropriations (including special instruments), the requested total
expenditure is EUR 141 337.3 million, corresponding to 1.01%
of GNI. This is an increase of EUR 968 million compared
to
payment appropriations in the 2014 budget (+ 0.7%),
when including Draft Amending Budgets No 3-8/2014, and leaves a
margin of EUR 800 million under the MFF ceiling.
Budgetary analysis of the headings is as
follows:
- Heading 1a, Competitiveness for Growth and
Jobs: commitment appropriations for
heading 1a are set at EUR 17 488.5 million. This is an
increase of 6.1% compared to the 2014 budget, which is mostly due
to Horizon 2020, the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and the large
infrastructure projects ITER and Copernicus
under this heading, and leaves a margin of EUR 177.5 million.
Payment appropriations increase by 31.6% to EUR 15 833.3
million. This significant increase takes into account the low level
of payments in 2014 for programmes such as Horizon 2020 and the
need to address the growing level of outstanding commitments while
allowing for sufficient pre-financing to launch the new
programmes.
- Heading 1b, Economic, Social and Territorial
Cohesion: commitment appropriations
increase by 3.6% to EUR 49 230.3 million, leaving no
margin. This includes the additional structural funds foreseen
for Cyprus, for which the Commission proposes the mobilisation of
the Flexibility Instrument for an amount of EUR 83.3 million in
commitment appropriations and EUR 11.3 million in payment
appropriations. Payment appropriations decrease by 6% compared to
the 2014 budget as modified by Draft Amending Budgets, to EUR
51 067.4 million.
- Heading 2, Sustainable Growth: Natural
Resources: commitment appropriations
of EUR 58 808.6 million are proposed for heading 2. This level
of expenditure represents a -0.6% reduction compared to the 2014
budget and leaves a margin of EUR 790.4 million under the
ceiling. Payment appropriations amount to EUR 56 231.1
million, with the same decrease (-0.6%) compared to 2014 as
modified by Draft Amending Budgets. Integrating the latest update
on assigned revenue, the funding for market related expenditure and
direct aids reaches EUR 43 455.8 million in commitment
appropriations, and EUR 43 448.3 million in payment
appropriations. When combining EAGF assigned revenue and requested
appropriations, global EAGF expenditure increases by EUR 273.6
million compared to the original draft budget. A margin under the
subceiling for market measures and direct aids amounting to EUR 734
million is left.
- Heading 3, Security and Citizenship: this heading sees a 1.2% decrease in commitment
appropriations to EUR 2 146.7 million, leaving a margin of EUR
99.3 million. Payment appropriations increase by 12.4% to EUR
1 884.3 million, due to the start-up of the Asylum, Migration
and Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund.
- Heading 4, Global Europe: this heading sees an increase in commitment
appropriations of 0.4% to EUR 8 356.4 million, leaving an
unallocated margin of EUR 392.6 million available under the
ceiling. Payment appropriations increase by 8.6% to EUR 7 428
million, mostly to take account of the rapidly growing level of
outstanding commitments under this heading.
- Heading 5, Administration: commitment and payment appropriations for all
institutions combined including pensions and European schools
increase by 3.3%, for commitments (EUR 8 680.5 million) and
3.1% for payments (EUR 8 668.1 million). This takes into
account the proposed transfer of "common administrative costs of EU
Delegations" and the EU Special Representatives from the
operational headings. The resulting unallocated margin is EUR 395.5
million.
The details of the changes proposed to the original
Draft Budget, as modified by Amending Letter No 1/2015, are as
follows:
- Heading 1a - Competitiveness for Growth and
Jobs: commitment appropriations
are set at the level proposed by the Commission in the original
Draft Budget, with amendments to the programmes included in the
table below, to reflect the priority of contributing to enhancing
access to finance through the EU budget, especially for the small
and middle-sized enterprises (SMEs).
- Heading 2 - Sustainable Growth: Natural
Resources: commitment
appropriations are set at the level proposed by the Commission in
the Draft Budget, as amended by Amending Letter 1/2015, integrating
the latest update (+ EUR 273.6 million) of assigned revenue. Based
on the new elements that have emerged since the presentation of
Amending Letter 1/2015, notably the information on the actual
uptake of the emergence measures taken since August 2014 to respond
to the Russian food import ban, the final EAGF surplus for 2014 and
the updated forecast of financial corrections to be collected in
2015, the emergency measures referred to above (including those
related to the dairy sector in the Baltic States, for which the
Commission adopted a further package on 26 November 2014, as well
as for Finland once the conditions are met), can be financed within
the appropriations requested in Amending Letter 1/2015 without
having recourse to the agricultural crisis reserve, thanks to this
additional assigned revenue.
- Heading 3 - Security and
Citizenship: commitment
appropriations are set at the level proposed by the Commission in
the original Draft Budget, with the following changes: the EUR 20
million increase in the operational expenditure of FRONTEX, is
offset by a corresponding reduction of budget item (18 02 01 01)
Support of border management and a common visa policy to facilitate
legitimate travel.
- Heading 4 - Global Europe: commitment appropriations are set at the level
proposed by the Commission in the original Draft Budget. However,
the appropriations related to budget item (19 03 01 07) European
Union Special Representatives (EUR 20 million in commitments and
EUR 9.2 million in payments) are transferred to the EEAS section of
the budget.
- Heading 5 - Administration: the number of posts in the establishment plans of
the Institutions and the commitment appropriations are set at the
level proposed by the Commission in the Draft Budget as amended by
Amending Letter 1/2015, with the following exceptions: (i) a net
reduction of 35 establishment plan posts, on the one hand due to a
reduction of 47 posts for the European Parliament and an increase
of 12 posts for the Court of Justice on the other hand; (ii) a net
reduction in appropriations of EUR 600 000, on the one hand due to
a reduction of EUR 1.4 million for the European Court of Auditors,
EUR 1.4 million for the European Economic and Social Committee and
EUR 400 000 for the Committee of the Regions, and an increase of
EUR 2.6 million for the Court of Justice on the other hand; (iii)
the increase of EUR 91.5 million for the EEAS reflects the
budgetary-neutral transfer of the "common administrative costs of
EU Delegations" and the EU Special Representatives, which is
completely offset in the Commission section in heading 1a. Overall,
these transfers result in a net increase in appropriations under
heading 5 of EUR 66.3 million.
The issue of payment appropriations: the Commission assessment of needs, which led to the
requested increase in payment appropriations for the financial year
2014 as proposed in Draft Amending Budget (DAB) No 3/2014 remains
justified, both in terms of actual implementation to date and in
light of payment claims received. Although no agreement was reached
in the Conciliation Committee on DAB No 3/2014, nor on DAB 5/2014
and 7/2014 on the mobilisation of the EU Solidarity Fund, these
amending budgets are still part of the package to be agreed
together with the 2015 budget. No agreement was reached on
the level of additional payment appropriations required by DABs 3,
5 and 7, and the financing of so-called 'special
instruments'.
This new Draft Budget 2015 entails a EUR 800
million overall reduction of payment appropriations compared to the
Commission's original Draft Budget as amended by Amending
Letter 1/2015.
The proposed distribution of payment appropriations in
the new Draft Budget 2015 will allow continuing to reduce the
backlog of unpaid bills from the past programming period for
Cohesion, to address the growing level of outstanding commitments
for Competitiveness and Global Europe, as well as to successfully
launch the new generation of spending programmes in
2015.
In this regard, the Commission stands ready to
contribute to establishing, in close cooperation with the European
Parliament and Council, a payment plan aiming at keeping the
evolution of the backlog of unpaid bills under
control.