Amending budget 6/2017: reduction of payment and commitment appropriations and update of revenue

2017/2217(BUD)

On 9 October 2017, the Commission submitted to the Council draft amending budget (DAB) No 6 to the general budget for 2017.

As regards the expenditure side, the following modifications are proposed:

  • to decrease payment appropriations (p/a) by -EUR 7.7 billion mostly under sub-heading 1b (-EUR 5.9 billion), and to a lesser extent under headings 2, 3 and 4 due to delays in the implementation of the 2014-2020 programmes;
  • to decrease commitment appropriations (c/a) by -EUR 15.3 million under heading 2 as a result of the latest needs assessment;
  • to decrease c/a and p/a by -EUR 46 million for the European Union Solidarity Fund (EUSF) relating to the payment of advances which will no longer be needed in 2017.

As regards the revenue side, the amendments proposed in this DAB concern:

  • the revision of the forecast of Traditional Own Resources (i.e. customs duties and sugar levies), value added tax (VAT) and gross national income (GNI) bases, the budgeting of the relevant UK corrections and their financing, which affects the distribution of own resources contributions from Member States to the EU budget;
  • entering into the EU budget the fines decided by the Commission, for which all legal remedies were exhausted and which therefore became definitive in the course of 2017, reducing accordingly the own resources contributions from Member States to the EU budget.

Overall, this DAB decreases the level of c/a by -EUR 61.3 million and of p/a by -EUR 7 719.7 million.

On 27 November 2017, the Council adopted its position on Draft amending budget No 6/2017 as set out in the technical annex to the explanatory memorandum to its position on the draft amending budget (see Council document 14275/2017).