MEPs approve €2.7 billion budget top-up
Extra funds needed to avert disruption of EU business.
The European Parliament has endorsed €2.7 billion in extra money for the European Union’s 2013 budget in order to avert disruption of EU business.
The budget top-up was approved today (24 October) with 428 votes in favour, 44 against and 76 abstentions.
The member states had backed the extra funds on Monday in an emergency procedure, and the European Commission issued a dramatic appeal to MEPs to schedule a special vote during this week’s plenary in Strasbourg, which ended today.
Many MEPs felt bullied by the request, but the Parliament’s budgets committee endorsed the extra money on Tuesday and a vote in plenary was scheduled for this morning.
Martin Schulz, the president of the Parliament, said after the vote: “I deeply regret that the impending cash shortfalls were not acted upon in an effective and swift manner by Commission and Council [of Ministers].”
“This is not the way the EU should operate – we cannot continue to muddle through from one budget crisis to another,” he said. “Rather, the EU needs a realistic and adequate budget which will guarantee that the EU can operate efficiently and would avoid the need for last-minute crisis decision-making.”
The budget top-up is a largely technical measure to make up for lower-than-projected revenue, primarily from value-added tax and excise duties.
Another Commission request, for €3.9bn in fresh contributions from the member states, is more controversial. The UK prevented the Council of Ministers from formally adopting the request earlier this month, forcing Lithuania, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the Council, to schedule an extraordinary meeting of ministers for foreign or European affairs on 30 October.
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The Council’s hesitation to approve the €3.9bn prompted the Parliament to postpone a vote on the EU’s next multi-annual budget, for 2014-20, until the November plenary.
Giovanni La Via, a centre-right Italian who is the lead MEP on the 2013 budget, said that today’s decision “does not eliminate the need for fresh money to pay the bills already submitted by the member states, not to mention those coming up in November and December, which will inevitably affect the already tight 2014 budget”.
Negotiations on the 2014 budget begin today and under EU law must end on 13 November.
La Via said that the budget top-up “will allow the Commission to drive on for a short while, but at far from cruising speed”.
“We cannot go on filling gaps by creating others. I hope it is now clear to the Council that once you commit funds, you are then obliged to foot the bills.”