The Committee on Budgets adopted the Siegfried report MUREŞAN (EPP, RO) on the Council position on Draft amending budget No 3/2018 of the European Union for the financial year 2018, Section III - Commission: extension of the facility for refugees in Turkey (FRT).
The committee took note of the Draft amending budget No 3/2018 as submitted by the Commission, which is devoted solely to the financing of the 2018 Union budget contribution to the FRT, for an amount of EUR 500 million in commitment appropriations, and of the Council´s position thereon.
Members deplored the discrepancy between the absence of Parliament’s involvement in the adoption of the decisions on the setting-up and on the prolongation of the FRT on one hand, and its role as budgetary authority in the financing of the FRT from the Union budget.
They regretted that the Commission did not include the 2018 financing of the FRT in its 2018 draft budget at any stage of the 2018 budgetary procedure.
Members noted that the purpose of Draft amending budget No 3/2018 is primarily to allow for the schooling of refugee children in Turkey to continue seamlessly. They approved the Council position on Draft amending budget No 3/2018.
The report stressed that this decision is without prejudice to its position on the remaining part of the financing of the second tranche of the FRT. Irrespective of the Council’s deliberations on the prolongation of the FRT, Parliament will fully retain its prerogatives through the 2019 budgetary procedure.