The European Parliament adopted by 576 votes to 72, with 50 abstentions, a resolution on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument for immediate budgetary measures to address the refugee crisis, in accordance with point 12 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 2 December 2013 between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline, on cooperation in budgetary matters and on sound financial management.
Parliament stated that after having examined all possibilities for re-allocating commitment appropriations under heading 3 and heading 4, it appears necessary to mobilise the Flexibility Instrument for commitment appropriations.
The Commission proposed to mobilise the Flexibility Instrument in order to complement the financing in the general budget of the Union for the financial year 2016 beyond the ceiling of heading 3 by EUR 1 504 million in commitment appropriations to finance measures under the European Agenda on Migration.
In addition to a final amount of EUR 1 506 million beyond the ceiling of heading 3, the Conciliation Committee convened for the 2016 budget agreed to Parliament's delegation proposal for a further mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument by EUR 24 million beyond the ceiling of heading 4 in order to address the external dimension of the challenges posed by the refugee crisis.
Therefore, the total amount of the Flexibility Instrument for the financial year 2016, which includes the unused amounts from the financial years 2014 and 2015, is therefore fully exhausted.
The European Parliament approved the mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument for an amount of EUR 1 530 million in commitment appropriations.
On the basis of the expected payment profile, the payment appropriations corresponding to the mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument will be as follows:
Further budget flexibility: Parliament reiterated that the mobilisation of this instrument shows, once more, the crucial need for the Union budget to be more flexible. It noted that these additional appropriations are only made possible thanks to the carry-over of unused amounts from the Flexibility Instruments of the financial years 2014 and 2015 and that no amount will be carried over to the financial year 2017, thus limiting any mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument to its annual ceiling of EUR 471 million.
Consequently, Parliament approved the decision annexed to the draft resolution and to mobilise the Flexbility Instrument as set out above.