European Parliament resolution on the guidelines for the 2001 budget procedure - Section III - Commission
29. 12. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 378/57 TEXTS ADOPTED Thursday 30 March 2000 1. 2001 budgetary guidelines Section III A5-0070/2000 European Parliament resolution on the guidelines for the 2001 budget procedure Section III Commission The European Parliament, having regard to Article 272 of the EC Treaty, Article 177 of the Euratom Treaty and Article 78 of the ECSC Treaty, having regard to the Interinstitutional Agreement (IIA) of 6 May 1999 between the European Parlia- ment, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure (1), having regard to the European Parliament and Council Decision of 16 December 1999 to use the flexibility instrument for the financing of the reconstruction of Kosovo (2), having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgets and the opinions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities (A5-0070/2000), A. whereas the budgetary procedure for the EU budget 2000 has shown the benefits of the Interinstitu- tional Agreement of 6 May 1999 and its limitations, especially as regards the ceilings of the different categories of the financial perspective, B. whereas the amounts provided for within the ceiling for heading 4 of the financial perspective are structurally inadequate to cope with reconstruction needs in Kosovo and needs in the western Balkans in general, C. whereas in the 2000 budgetary procedure the two arms of the budgetary authority came to an agree- ment to increase the ceiling of heading 4 through the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument in order to provide for a revised amount to secure the reconstruction of Kosovo in 2000 which does not jeopardise the traditional policies of the Union, and whereas the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 has already opened the way for the revision of the financial perspective in view of developments in the Balkan situation (Declaration on heading 4), D. whereas the Commission, in Declaration No 1 on the abovementioned European Parliament and Council Decision of 16 December 1999, confirmed that it will propose by April 2000 an aid pro- gramme for the western Balkans, including Kosovo, for the period 2000-2006, and that the amount concerned will require it to submit a proposal for revision of the financial perspective and a program- ming plan for heading 4; whereas in Declaration No 2 the European Parliament and the Council took note that ‘if a sum requiring a financial effort significantly greater than that already programmed were to be agreed, this would entail exceeding the current ceilings for heading 4 of the financial perspec- tive’, E. whereas the budget for 2000 takes the first steps towards reducing the existing backlog in payments, in particular in heading 2 (Structural operations), heading 3 (especially the framework programme for research) and heading 4 (External actions) of the financial perspective, and whereas Parliament will insist on the continuing need to search for a definitive solution for this problem and to ensure that a sufficient level of payments is maintained over the new programming period, F. whereas the solution to the problems raised by the financing of European Union assistance in the Western Balkans should not undermine the European Union’s commitment to financing other sectors and other external action priorities of the European Parliament, (1) OJ C 172, 18. 6. 1999, p. 1. (2) OJ C 41, 14. 2. 2000, p. 1. C 378/58 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 29. 12. 2000 Thursday 30 March 2000 G. whereas the forthcoming enlargement of the Union will be constantly borne in mind in the budget procedure, H. whereas it is undesirable for the Commission to enter into financial commitments or arouse expecta- tions without first consulting the budgetary authority about the basis and financial cover for those commitments; whereas the Council and Parliament should consider their dual responsibility as legisla- tive and budgetary authorities in deciding on both annual allocation and multiannual envelopes for codecision programmes, I. whereas, in the procedures for the budget years 1999 and 2000, important progress was made by Parliament in identifying and restricting the administrative expenditure entered in part B of Section III (Commission) of the EU General Budget, J. whereas since March 1999 it has been calling for an evaluation of the Commission’s priorities and real needs for human resources which has not yet been provided although a commitment was made to link this evaluation to the forthcoming reform, K. whereas Parliament has successfully urged the Commission to present a timetable for re-organising externalisation policy in an efficient, cost-effective and transparent way, including the definition of the legal framework, structure and mandate of the different instruments of externalisation by mid- April 2000, to dismantle current Technical Assistance Offices and to present, by the end of September 2000, the proposal on a legal framework for a new category of Community bodies, a timetable for testing and extending the use of this new category of Community bodies, and a first assessment in terms of staff needs, L. whereas the Commission announced serious and profound administrative reforms from the year 2000 on, including the achievement of a better match between resources and tasks, and on 1 March 2000 presented a White Paper on Reforming the Commission containing an outline of the future ‘adminis- trative architecture’ of the Commission, M. whereas Activity Based Budgeting (ABB) as part of Activity Based Management (ABM) has to play an important role in the framework of the administrative reform inaugurated by the Commission, N. whereas Parliament intends, subject to the Council’s meeting its obligations, to follow the Interinstitu- tional Agreement, in particular to improve cooperation between the institutions on budgetary matters, and asks the Council and Commission to act likewise, O. whereas the Council and the Commission need to take account of the objectives set out in Parlia- ment’s budget guidelines in a spirit of constructive cooperation with a view to the drafting of the Preliminary Draft Budget and the Draft Budget, Political priorities 1. Stresses the need in time to find appropriate funding to finance policies newly introduced or rein- forced by the Amsterdam Treaty, in both internal and external actions; and underlines its objective to strengthen the social and cultural dimension of Europe through the first budget of the new millennium and to set priorities in the field of employment policy by using all the instruments at its disposal; to support measures to develop the cultural industry; and to promote the broad participation of all social sectors and regions in the information society and the principle of equal opportunities in accordance with Article 13 of the EC Treaty; 2. Underlines its consistent priority to support employment policy, job-creation and the dissemination of the new technologies in particular through micro-enterprises and SMEs, irrespective of the legal form they take; stresses that measures in favour of employment should be targeted at these enterprises and at the information technology sector, taking into account the results of the Lisbon Summit; 29. 12. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 378/59 Thursday 30 March 2000 3. Underlines the need to provide a sustainable and multiannual contribution to the financial assistance for the reconstruction of Kosovo and the stabilisation of the Balkan region in order to improve the huma- nitarian situation and to create the conditions for closer relations between the people and the countries of this region and the European Union; draws attention to the undertaking to this effect given by the Council in its declaration of 16 December 1999; recalls, in accordance with paragraph 20 of the Interinstitutional Agreement, the need to decide on a revision of the financial perspective before the start of the budgetary procedure, and before the Council’s first reading at the latest; Stresses the need to launch, before the end of 2000, the reform of the administrative system of the 4. European Union in order to improve efficiency, cost-effectiveness, accountability and transparency, recal- ling that the image of Europe, in the eyes of certain sectors of the public, is linked to the success of this reform; recalls its request in the context of the 2000 Budget for an assessment of staff needs, now expected to be published in September; requests that the Commission include in this report what the staff require- ments are to maintain core activities and run existing programmes, as well as estimates for additional staff to underpin new activities; Administrative reform 5. Welcomes the Commission’s announcements on administrative reform, and notes the presentation of the White Paper, ‘Reforming the Commission’, to be considered by Parliament; expects the Commission to follow the letter and spirit of the undertakings given during the 2000 budget procedure; points out that a consensual climate between the institutions in the budgetary procedure will improve the chances for an efficient implementation of the reform package; 6. Emphasises that the political guidance and supervision of the European administration are core responsibilities of the European Parliament in order to guarantee an efficient use of taxpayers’ money, and recalls that the EC Treaty (Article 274) confers on the Commission responsibility for implementing the budget and on Parliament powers of control over such implementation; 7. Insists that the Commission follow the timetable for reorganising externalisation policy and stresses that it will not accept any departure from this timetable or any further delay in the reorganisation; points out that the success of the 2001 budget procedure will be heavily dependent on adherence to the commit- ment referred to in paragraph 5 above, which was made in the letter of 24 November 1999 from Com- mission Vice-President Kinnock, and Commissioner Schreyer; Evolution of budgetary structure 8. Points out that the structure of the EU budget has to be clear, transparent and easy for the public to understand to reflect the political objectives of the European Union and to facilitate supervision of the implementation of the policy measures; the budget document itself must be the practical expression of European Union policy; 9. Welcomes the efforts of the Commission to present the PDB in parallel in the form of an Activity- Based Budget (ABB), and underlines that the objectives of the ABB must be: to improve administrative performance, transparency and the level of evaluation, and thus to enhance its scope for exerting more clearly-targeted and stronger political guidance, to foster sound management, efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the administration and to reinforce flexibility of the management of Community actions by the Commission; Asks the Commission to ensure that Parliament’s horizontal priorities such as mainstreaming of 10. green and gender issues are duly taken into account and highlighted; 11. Stresses that the objectives of Activity Based Budgeting are beneficial for all forms of European Union expenditure and, therefore, the ABB exercise should be applied to all EU expenditure, including the European Development Fund (EDF); C 378/60 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 29. 12. 2000 Thursday 30 March 2000 12. Points out that the administrative reform and the introduction of the ABB must not prevent the budgetary authority from exerting its powers over the allocation of the resources it considers necessary to implement EU policies, and must prevent the Commission from binding the implementation of new pol- itical priorities to extra human resources or administrative expenditure; 13. Considers it essential, under the new financial framework for the period 2000-2006, that the bud- getary authority exercise closer control of the financial statements in new legislative initiatives; urges the Council and Commission to agree with Parliament on a mechanism for implementing better monitoring of new proposals; 14. Welcomes current Commission thinking as regards adding a detailed breakdown of EDF appropria- tions in an annex, as an important first step towards its integration in the budget; such a step will only be useful if the information includes performance targets to enable the budgetary authority to monitor the efficiency of implementation; Implementation of the budget 15. Underlines the significance of the implementation of the budgets of the previous years for the es- tablishment of the 2001 budget, emphasises the need to strengthen instruments for monitoring not only the quantitative, but in particular the qualitative aspects of the implementation of expenditure, and instructs its committees to continue their efforts concerning the monitoring of budget expenditure, and to develop further their close cooperation; also instructs its committees to examine quarterly the implementation of the budget on the basis of detailed reports from the Commission; Stresses the need to establish, in cooperation with the Council and Commission, a procedure linking 16. the implementation of the current budget to the establishment of the budget for the following year; 17. Notes the ongoing work in the context of the 1998 discharge for Section III (Commission budget); considers that the conclusions from this exercise may need to be reflected in the decisions taken in the 2001 budget for the Commission; 18. Points out that there should be a detection and evaluation procedure for identifying non-compliance with the conditions of implementation established in the budget; and stresses that a procedure should be established to freeze the execution of budget lines if those conditions are not met; 19. Calls on the Commission to present by 31 May 2000 the proposal for the revision of the Financial Regulation; expects that the proposal will reflect the recommendations made by Parliament and the changes proposed by the Commission in the administrative, financial and budgetary fields; calls upon the Council to guarantee that no changes will be made to the Financial Regulation without Parliament’s agree- ment, thus respecting the principle of codecision which is practised in the budgetary field, and asks the Council to speed up the procedure for adoption as much as possible; Specific problems Pilot Projects and Preparatory Actions 20. Expects the Commission to give a positive follow-up to the pilot projects and preparatory actions entered in the Budget 2000 by 30 April 2000 and to those entered in future budgets; draws attention in this connection to paragraph 37 of the Interinstitutional Agreement; points out that those budget lines serve as a testbed for European integration and must therefore give rise to a thorough assessment and circulation of the best results with a view to the development of new programmes or measures; undertakes therefore to monitor extremely closely, with the help of its specialised committees, the work carried out by the Commission in this area so as to ensure that public funds are used in an effective manner; Classification 21. Reiterates its position that expenditure resulting from international agreements, including interna- tional fisheries agreements, which the European Union or the European Community has concluded with non-member countries, has to be classified as compulsory only after the conclusion of the said agreements, according to Annex IV of the Interinstitutional Agreement; calls on the Commission to present these appropriations in separate budget lines; 29. 12. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 378/61 Natural disasters Requests the Commission to pay special attention to structural problems of an economic or social 22. character caused by natural disasters and to look favourably on measures to help solve these problems; Thursday 30 March 2000 Heading 1 Considers it undesirable that heading 1 of the financial perspectives should be used as a primary 23. financial source for financial needs in the field of external policy; Differentiated appropriations Asks the Commission to present in the framework of the revision of the Financial Regulation 24. a proposal to bring the appropriations in sub-heading 1 b under differentiated appropriations; Ancillary expenditure Criticises the Commission’s practice in Supplementary and Amending Budgets Nos 4 and 5/99 of 25. decreasing those budget lines in Title B1-3 (‘Ancillary expenditure’) which were Parliament’s priorities in the 1999 budget procedure, and urges the Commission to make an effort to implement Parliament’s prio- rities even when they involve compulsory expenditure; 26. Calls on the Commission, in view of the importance of fisheries, including small-scale fisheries, for preserving jobs and the economy in those outlying regions of the EU which are heavily fisheries-depen- dent, to include among its priorities not only resource conservation but also the consolidation and exten- sion of international fisheries agreements and the improvement of working conditions and safety standards in the sector; Heading 2 Management and Implementation 27. Underlines the need for in-depth analysis of the management of the Structural Funds, in particular concerning the externalisation of financing decisions; urges the Commission and the Member States urgently to review the decision-making procedures in order to avoid a slow start in the implementation of the new funds in 2000, which would inevitably begin to store up problems for the 2001 budget and for future budgets; Backlog 28. Underlines the need in 2001, already the second year of the new programming period 2000-2006, finally to use up the very large accumulated backlog of appropriations (‘reste à liquider’) still available under the previous programming period 1993-1999, while respecting the principles of sound budgeting; urges the Commission to begin taking the necessary action to achieve a significant reduction in the payment period for committed appropriations; Cultural industry 29. Requests the Commission to continue, pursuant to Article 158 of the EC Treaty, to develop its efforts to support the cultural industry in the framework of the structural operations, in view of the role played by culture in reinforcing economic and social cohesion and given that culture is a major job crea- tor, is increasingly a decisive factor in the location of new investment, and plays a highly positive role in social integration; stresses that the audiovisual industry (cinema, radio, television), the publishing industry (books and the press), the architectural, artistic, historical and archaeological heritage, and the work of creators in every sphere of the arts should, therefore, be paid particular attention by the Commission; C 378/62 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 29. 12. 2000 Thursday 30 March 2000 Heading 3 Employment initiative 30. Stresses the need to ensure the continuity of significant funding for employment, complementing actions financed by the Structural Funds in this field; asks the Commission to submit to Parliament, before its first reading of the 2001 budget, a qualitative evaluation of the employment initiative launched in 1998 demonstrating its impact on job creation; calls on the Commission to concentrate further initiatives on measures to ensure greater integration of micro-enterprises and SMEs into the Information Society in order to strengthen their competitiveness in an international environment; Trans-European Networks 31. States that TENs are of particular strategic importance to future growth and to integration between different parts of Europe; urges the incorporation of modern Information Technology Highways and net- works within the TENs programme in order to give Europe the best IT infrastructure in the world; Agencies 32. Considers that the year 2001 should consolidate the progress made in the previous years in terms of information and transparency, and recommends that positive and negative priorities should be set in order to optimise the subsidy granted from the Union budget; Social dialogue 33. Stresses that the dialogue between representatives of the two sides of industry has an important role to play in European integration, as the inclusion in the Treaty of a basis for it shows; acknowledges the growing demands on employee organisations due to the process of internationalisation and globalisation of economic relations; considers therefore that the vital work of European associations of employee and employer organisations should continue to receive support from the European budget and calls on the Commission to make appropriate provision for this in the Preliminary Draft Budget; Information policy 34. Considers that efforts should be maintained to bring European citizens closer to the Union; to this end asks the Commission to present an action plan of the centralised and decentralised measures it intends to take under the new administrative structure which emerges from the reform, where possible on an interinstitutional basis, and stresses that the new structure has to be transparent, closer to the citizens and guarantee the coherence of the information policy of the Union’s various institutions; New policies after Amsterdam 35. Underlines the importance of appropriate funding for the areas newly introduced or reinforced by the Amsterdam Treaty concerning internal policies such as combating discrimination, social exclusion, racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism; promoting economic and social cohesion; migration and asylum policy and other new common policies in the field of justice and internal affairs; education; employment policy including SMEs; environment policy, public health, consumer protection and food safety; develop- ment of island regions; specific measures for peripheral regions; statistics, and the setting up of the office of the European Data Protection Supervisor; Natural disasters Stresses the need to re-establish line B4-3400 (urgent aid for natural disasters within the European 36. Union) so that urgent needs can be addressed immediately, fully respecting the principle of subsidiarity; 29. 12. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 378/63 Thursday 30 March 2000 Justice and Internal Affairs Underscores the strategic importance of the justice and home affairs sector following the entry into 37. force of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere Summit conclusions, and in this context: stresses the need to give the European Refugee Fund a permanent legal basis and appropriate budget resources in order to ensure genuine burden-sharing among the Member States of the European Union, proposes that a new migration flow control instrument be created by instituting a development part- nership with countries of origin and transit countries, calls on the Commission to earmark the operational and administrative resources needed to introduce the scoreboard adopted at Tampere, in particular Eurojust and the European Police College, presses for the necessary bolstering of the measures intended to prevent and combat all forms of discrimination as part of the process of implementing Article 13 of the EC Treaty; Heading 4 Financial framework Expects that the Commission, when presenting the proposal for the revision of heading 4 of the 38. financial perspective, will duly take into account all the events which have occurred recently relating to the external policy of the Union, and which neither the Council nor Parliament was able to take into account when they agreed in May 1999 on heading 4 of the financial perspective; expects that at the forthcoming donor conference on the multiannual programme for the Western Balkans the Commission will not enter into financial commitments or arouse expectations without first consulting the budgetary authority about the basis and financial cover for those commitments; Small-scale projects Calls on the Commission to simplify and decentralise procedures for small-scale projects, such as 39. human rights and democratisation projects, which offer high value for little money; Civil crisis management Requests the Commission, with a view to the plan for the presentation of a new mechanism for 40. civil crisis management, to accompany the Preliminary Draft Budget with a communication on the estab- lishment of a ‘Rapid Reaction Facility’ in favour of third countries; Western Balkans 41. Requests the Commission to adjust the nomenclature of the budget, as regards the financing of European Union assistance to the Western Balkans, in order to include in a single chapter (B7-54) all the appropriations related to the financial assistance to this region, including macroeconomic assistance and transfrontier cooperation; Common foreign and security policy 42. Notes the trend, in recent years, towards a significant increase in the expenditure related to the common foreign and security policy, and reiterates its determination to ensure that this trend is duly monitored by both arms of the budgetary authority; indicates its intention to examine existing initiatives and, where appropriate, to extend and expand such initiatives where it could be shown that this would be in the European interest; calls on the Commission to provide the budgetary authority and the Court of Auditors with detailed information on the use of appropriations for specific CFSP actions recalling the Council’s obligation to forward to Parliament the financial statement related to each decision adopted in the field of CFSP and the Commission’s obligation to inform the budgetary authority about its implemen- tation and financial forecasts; C 378/64 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 29. 12. 2000 Thursday 30 March 2000 TACIS 43. Recalls that the appropriations to be entered in the PDB 2001 for the TACIS programme must be accompanied by clear information giving the estimated breakdown by sectors and beneficiary countries, welcomes the Council’s decision to re-focus the Tacis 2000 programme on core areas directly promoting democratic values in Russia, and to transfer uncommitted balances to humanitarian assistance and the promotion of networking in civil society; requests the Commission, in the Preliminary Draft Budget, to enter the appropriations related to Russia in the reserve (B0-40), as long as a clear identification of the programmes and projects to be financed is not available and their respect of the principles and guide- lines decided by Parliament and the Council, as regards the Chechnya conflict, has not been achieved; Poverty eradication and social development 44. States its determination that the budget should reflect the importance of internationally agreed objectives of poverty eradication, paying particular attention to the Least Developed Countries (LLDCs), and accepts the need for a greater focus on social development (health, gender, etc. ); suggests that the way the budget is presented should make it possible to assess the EU’s performance in meeting interna- tional targets; Heading 5 OLAF 45. Recalls that the new antifraud office (OLAF) has been provided with significant administrative and staffing resources by the budgetary authority in the years 1999 and 2000 and, while confirming the target of 300 posts, asks the Commission to indicate the level of occupancy of the new posts created in 1999 and 2000; Administrative reform 46. Draws the attention of all the institutions and in particular the Commission to the evaluation of the needs attached to the administrative reform, to the limits of heading 5 and to the necessity for planning their establishment plans over the whole period covered by the financial perspective, and asks the institu- tions to transmit information on their planning to the budgetary authority; Subsidies for European organisations 47. Acknowledges that progress has been made in recent years in enhancing transparency in the man- agement of subsidies for European organisations (Chapter A-30); considers it necessary, however, given that those subsidies have a great impact on citizens, to ensure that they are cost-effective by avoiding duplication; will review thoroughly the annual reports for 1999 before taking its formal decision for the 2001 budget; Pensions 48. Requests the Commission to start making provisions in the preliminary draft budget for the year 2001 for a pension fund and to use for that purpose the nomenclature already used in the budget; requests the Commission to specify, in its preliminary draft budget and within the framework of Activity Based Budgeting, the estimated payments for pensions to all retired staff of the institutions for the years 2001 to 2010; Heading 6 Reserve for guarantees 49. Expresses concern about the future capacity of this reserve to finance all requirements for EU lend- ing interventions, and suggests that the priorities of the EU in terms of future loan interventions should be discussed jointly by the budgetary authority and the Commission in order to ensure a degree of advance 29. 12. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 378/65 planning of needs; expects the Commission to update the financial information on loans and guarantees contained in its working documents in time for second reading so that the latest information can be included in the published budget; Thursday 30 March 2000 Heading 7 Cyprus and Malta Reiterates its determination to enter all appropriations for the benefit of the accession candidate including those appropriations relating to the pre-accession strategy for Malta and Cyprus, 50. countries, under heading 7 of the financial perspective (title B7-0); Implementation Emphasises the need to monitor closely the implementation of the three actions PHARE, SAPARD 51. and ISPA against the background of the accession negotiations currently in progress; Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Court of Audi- 52. tors, the European Investment Bank and the Union’s satellite agencies. * * * 2. 2001 budgetary guidelines other sections A5-0068/2000 European Parliament resolution on the guidelines for the 2001 budget procedure: Section I European Parliament; Section II Council; Section IV Court of Justice; Section V Court of Auditors; Section VI Economic and Social Committee; Section VII Committee of the Regions; Section VIII Ombudsman The European Parliament, having regard to the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000 (1), having regard to the Court of Auditors’ Annual report concerning the financial year 1998, together with the institutions’ replies (2), having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgets and the opinion of the Committee on Peti- tions (A5-0068/2000), A. whereas the ceiling of heading 5 in the 2001 budget is € 4 776 000 000 (3), All institutions Points out that the policy of budgetary rigour will also apply in the 2001 budget and that setting 1. priorities amongst the needs of the various institutions continues to be extremely important, to avoid the ceiling of heading 5 expenditure being reached; emphasises that every request for additional expenditure has to be duly justified, and may, in principle, be granted only for new tasks, and, in respect of requests for new staff, only where redeployment is not possible; (1) OJ L 40, 14. 2. 2000. (2) OJ C 349, 3. 12. 1999, p. 1. (3) To which an amount of about € 163 million has to be added, being the amount of the staff contributions to the pension scheme of the officials of the Community. See footnote 2 to Annex I of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 (OJ C 172, 18. 6. 1999, p. 1) and COM(2000) 93 final, for the technical adjustments