WRITTEN QUESTION P-2367/99 by Maurizio Turco (TDI) to the Commission. Budget nomenclature encouraging the practice of false subsidies.
8. 8. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 225 E/115 (2000/C 225 E/122) WRITTEN QUESTION P-2367/99 by Maurizio Turco (TDI) to the Commission (1 December 1999) Subject: Budget nomenclature encouraging the practice of false subsidies The Committee of Independent Expertsí Second Report on Reform of the Commission strongly criticises the layout of the budget, which makes a distinction between Part A and Part B appropriations. Point 2. 1. 8. says With regard to subsidies, the Part A/part B nomenclature, far from leading to clarity, adds to the confusion a large proportion of subsidies are in fact disguised contracts which the Commission refuses to treat as such, for a whole series of reasons, the main one being that transparency is even less fully assured for subsidies than for contractsí. Can the Commission say: 1. whether it intends, when drafting the next budget, to maintain only the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure; 2. what the subsidies disguised as contracts mentioned by the Committee are, who those responsible are and what steps it intends to take and according to what time-scale? Answer given by Ms Schreyer on behalf of the Commission (26 January 2000) I would inform the Honourable Member that the distinction between compulsory expenditure (CE) and non-compulsory expenditure (NCE) stems from the rules on budget procedure laid down in Article 272 (former Article 203) of the EC Treaty. The budget that is adopted and published in the Official Journal does not make this distinction for the different headings. It is only at the preliminary draft budget stage that the Commission states its position, in an annex, on the classification to be followed throughout the budget procedure. Otherwise, the distinction is unlikely to be relevant in the grants debate. In July 1998 the Commission approved a Vade-mecum on grant management (1), which came into force on 1 January 1999. Among other things, this laid down a clear distinction between áprocurement spendingí, defined as a purchase of some product or service from the market and the object of a commercial contract, and ágrantsí, defined as áa direct payment of a non-commercial nature by the Commission to promote an EU policy aimí. Awards of both contracts and grants are subject to rigorous but different rules. (1) http://europa. eu. int/comm/secretariat_general/sgc/info_subv/intro_funding. htm. (2000/C 225 E/123) WRITTEN QUESTION E-2372/99 by Mihail Papayannakis (GUE/NGL) to the Commission (16 December 1999) Subject: Relaunching of mining activities in north-eastern Halkidiki Plans have been approved by the Greek Government to relaunch mining and, in particular, gold extraction activities by the TVX company in north-eastern Halkidiki with greatly increased plant capacity and size, in addition to a large gold metallurgy plant using cynagen, and producing exceptionally toxic and dangerous effluent containing arsenic, cadmium, lead, sulphurous compounds, cyanides and other substances