The European Parliament adopted the resolution drafted by Kyösti VIRRANKOSKI (ALDE, FI), and was broadly in accord with its budgets committee in approving the Commission’s annual policy strategy for the 2008 budget procedure.
Parliament wanted firstly to underline the importance it attached to the capacity of an EU of 27 members to make globalisation an opportunity for its citizens and highlighted, in this context, the importance of ensuring that the EU's financial and human resources were appropriately allocated so as to secure the proper functioning of the EU. The Union must maintain its focus on the Lisbon agenda and specifically on sustainable development, growth and jobs, competitiveness and SMEs, and social cohesion, as well as challenges posed by energy policy and climate change. Whilst these proposals were an example of a more flexible approach by the EU to engaging with the real challenges that European citizens face, Parliament pointed out that, as a result of very small margins under the different ceilings of expenditure, the EU's capacity to react to policy changes in budgetary terms was extremely limited. It was Parliament’s responsibility as budgetary authority to ensure that the funding allocated to the EU budget is spent with a view to delivering value for money, even though the Annual Policy Strategy (APS) did not adequately reflect Parliament’s priorities. In general, Parliament regretted the lack of interaction between the Legislative Work Programme and the budget procedure, and insisted upon a better coherence between the two procedures. Parliament expected the Commission to adjust its priorities on the basis of the decisions to be taken by the budgetary authority in the course of the annual procedure.
A budget for results: Parliamentunderlined the importance that it attaches to EU spending programmes effectively delivering on the political objectives which they were legislated to achieve. As a first step towards a budget for results, it stressed the importance of clarity, consistency and transparency in the presentation of the budget and it supported the Activity based budgeting (ABB) approach. However, it demanded that the Commission respect more closely the ABB and MFF structures and provide clear indications on the correspondence between the APS third classification and the budgetary headings of the IIA of 17 May 2006. Parliament also requested an improvement in the clarity of presentation of the Activity Statements in the 2008 PDB, and greater focus on policy objectives and measurement of policy outcomes and less information on administrative process than has frequently been the case in previous PDB documents.
Human resources: Parliament was strongly of the view that an effective and cost-efficient administrative system for the EU must be equipped with the necessary level of resources, and it awaited the results of an evaluation on the Commission's real staff needs to provide staff for the new political priorities such as energy, climate change, immigration, the implementation of multi-annual programmes and oversight of the transposition of EU law in the Member States. Parliament will evaluate the outcome of the screening in great depth in order to meet future political challenges starting from the 2008 budget procedure. It welcomed the Commission's efforts to re-direct its human resources towards political priorities but rejected the presentation of these priorities according to the labels prosperity, solidarity, security and external projection. It requested the Commission to give it further information regarding human resources policy and redeployment strategy for 2008.
Parliament went on to express its concern at expansion of existing decentralised agencies and recalled that the reduction in available margins will reduce the scope for funding new priorities, such as pilot projects and preparatory actions, and will also reduce the funds available for the expansion of existing programmes. Any further growth in executive agencies and other bodies might also reduce the operational funds available within programme envelopes. It was determined to clarify the definition, the role and the cost of all bodies defined under Article 185 of the Financial Regulation, to assess the cost-effectiveness of such modes of governance. Parliament stated that it was concerned that the creation of executive agencies and other ad hoc bodies might lead to a growth in the number of EU officials and contractual agents, and to a weakening of the oversight of the EU administration. The Commission should explain in the 2008 PDB how posts requested in new executive agencies and other ad hoc bodies would be offset by reductions in the responsible Directorate-General, and it should address the issue of appropriate oversight of executive agencies so as to ensure democratic accountability.
Multiannual Financial Framework: Parliamentnoted the limited, and in some cases decreasing, margins left under headings 1a and 3 and strongly opposed the Commission's proposal to use the small margins left available under these two headings for new initiatives, considering that the small margins limited the possibility of addressing efficiently any urgent or new political priority. It asked the Commission to present an overview of the margins in the different headings, and an update of the financial programming.
As regards pilot projects and preparatory actions, Parliament recalled that according to the IIA of 17 May 2006, both arms of the budgetary authority must inform the Commission by mid-June of their intentions, and it expressed concern that there might not be sufficient margins available for major new pilot projects and preparatory actions. It was also worried by the proposed back-loading of certain programmes in the 2008 Annual Policy Strategy and the problems that this may be storing up for future years of the MFF taking into account the problem of increasing RALs.
Specific points:several other specific points regarding the budgetary procedure were made in the resolution. Accordingly, Parliament :