Amending budget 4/2022: update of revenue (own resources) and other technical adjustments

2022/0211(BUD)

The European Parliament adopted by 593 votes to 16, with 12 abstentions, a resolution approving the Council's position on draft amending budget No 4/2022 of the European Union for the financial year 2022.

The main purpose of draft amending budget (DAB) No 4/2022 is to update the revenue side of the budget to take account of recent developments, namely the updated forecast of own resources for the 2022 budget, approved by the advisory committee on own resources (ACOR) on 23 May 2022, and the update of other revenues such as the UK contribution, fines and others.

The DAB also includes two specific expenditure-related adjustments corresponding to an adaptation of the budget nomenclature following the Commission proposal of 18 May 2022 on REPowerEU and the extension of Eurojust's mandate to collect and preserve evidence of war crimes.

No additional commitment or payment appropriations are required.

Highlighting the increase in genuine own resources of EUR 3 573.9 million, Parliament called for the introduction of new own resources to be accelerated so that the additional revenue from new own resources would be sufficient to cover at least the repayment of costs of the Recovery Instrument.

Members regretted that, in spite of Parliament's insistence, the Commission had decided to present elements related to the update of revenue with other elements related to ongoing negotiations. To better respect the prerogative of the budgetary authority, Members considered that the Commission should present a draft amending budget for one purpose only and refrain from combining several purposes in one draft amending budget.

Parliament welcomed the swift adoption of Regulation (EU) 2022/838 to extend Eurojust's mandate to support Ukraine in collecting, preserving and analysing evidence of war crimes following Russia's brutal and unjustified aggression. However, Members objected to the intended use of internal redeployments within the same policy area later in the year to finance the posts proposed under this draft amending budget. They stressed, in this context, that there are sufficient margins under Heading 2b.

Parliament also reaffirmed its long-standing position that increasing tasks and responsibilities for agencies must be accompanied by corresponding levels of fresh resources.