REPORT on the Council position on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018

11.10.2017 - (11815/2017 – C8‑0313/2017 – 2017/2044(BUD))

Part 1: Motion for a resolution
Committee on Budgets
Rapporteurs: Siegfried Mureşan (Section III – Commission)
Richard Ashworth (other sections)


Procedure : 2017/2044(BUD)
Document stages in plenary
Document selected :  
A8-0299/2017

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

on the Council position on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018

(11815/2017 – C8‑0313/2017 – 2017/2044(BUD))

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to Article 314 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

–  having regard to Article 106a of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community,

–  having regard to Council Decision 2014/335/EU, Euratom of 26 May 2014 on the system of own resources of the European Union[1],

–  having regard to Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002[2],

–  having regard to Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1311/2013 of 2 December 2013 laying down the multiannual financial framework for the years 2014-2020[3] (MFF Regulation),

–  having regard to the Interinstitutional Agreement of 2 December 2013 between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline, on cooperation in budgetary matters and on sound financial management[4] (IIA of 2 December 2013),

–  having regard to its resolution of 15 March 2017 on general guidelines for the preparation of the budget[5],

–  having regard to its resolution of 5 April 2017 on Parliament’s estimates of revenue and expenditure for the financial year 2018[6],

–  having regard to the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018, which the Commission adopted on 29 June 2017 (COM(2017)0400),

–  having regard to the position on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018, which the Council adopted on 4 September 2017 and forwarded to Parliament on 13 September 2017 (11815/2017 – C8‑0313/2017),

–  having regard to its resolution of 5 July 2017 on the mandate for the trilogue on the 2018 draft budget[7],

–  having regard to Rule 88 of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgets and the opinions of the other committees concerned (A8-0299/2017),

Section III

General overview

1.  Stresses that Parliament's reading of the 2018 Budget fully reflects the political priorities adopted by an overwhelming majority in its abovementioned resolutions of 15 March 2017 on general guidelines and of 5 July 2017 on a mandate for the trilogue; recalls that sustainable growth, jobs, in particular youth employment, security and climate change are at the core of those priorities;

2.  Highlights that the Union continues to face numerous challenges and is convinced that, while maintaining budget discipline, the necessary financial resources must be deployed from the Union budget, in order to meet the political priorities and allow the Union to deliver concrete answers and effectively respond to those challenges; underlines that Union spending should be based on the principle of European added value and should respect the principle of subsidiarity;

3.  Reaffirms its commitment to financing Union policies that enhance jobs and growth in all its regions through investment in research, education, infrastructure, SMEs and employment, in particular among young people; fails to understand how the Union can achieve progress in those fields considering the cuts proposed by the Council under subheading 1a; decides instead to additionally reinforce research and innovation programmes that have a very high implementation rate and which, due to oversubscription, are faced with a particularly low success rate for applications;

4.  Remains committed to its pledges made during the EFSI negotiations, namely to minimise the impact of EFSI-related cuts on Horizon 2020 and the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) in the framework of the annual budgetary procedure; proposes, therefore, to offset those cuts by restoring the original annual profile of those two programmes, in order to allow them to fully accomplish the objectives agreed during the adoption of the relevant legislation;

5.  Expresses its political support for the establishment of the European Solidarity Corps (ESC) and welcomes the legislative proposal put forward in this regard by the Commission; considers, however, that, pending a decision on the financing of the ESC and the adoption of the relevant regulation under the ordinary legislative procedure, no financial provision should be entered for this purpose in the 2018 Budget; decides, therefore, that relevant appropriations and redeployments, entered by the Commission in the Draft Budget 2018 (DB), should be for the moment reversed, as the decision on the 2018 Budget should not prejudge in any way the outcome of the legislative negotiations; remains fully committed to integrate the decision on ESC financing in next year’s budget immediately via an amending budget, in case the negotiations on the relevant regulation are not concluded before the end of the 2018 budgetary procedure;

6.  Is concerned by the fact that youth unemployment remains at unprecedented levels and is convinced that in order not to jeopardise the future of an entire generation of young Europeans, additional actions need to be undertaken; decides therefore to reinforce the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) beyond the level proposed by the Commission for 2018; stresses that such reinforcement should be considered as additional to the overall allocation that was politically endorsed for YEI in the context of the MFF mid-term revision, and not as a mere frontloading of that allocation in the 2018 Budget;

7.  Recalls that the cohesion policy plays a primary role in achieving economic and social convergence in the Union, and thus ensuring development and growth; stresses that in 2018, cohesion policy programmes are expected to catch-up and reach cruising speed; and emphasises Parliament’s commitment to ensuring adequate appropriations for those programmes that represent one of the core policies of the Union; is however preoccupied by the unacceptable delays in the implementation of operational programmes at national level; calls on Member States to ensure that the designation of managing, auditing and certifying authorities is concluded and implementation is accelerated; furthermore calls on the Commission to go further with the simplification of the related procedures;

8.  Believes that, while at present the peak of the migratory and refugee crisis seems to have decreased, the Union must stand ready to respond to any future unforeseen event in this area and pursue a more proactive approach in the field of migration; therefore urges the Commission to continuously monitor the adequacy of allocations under Heading 3 and make full use of all available instruments under the current MFF to respond in a timely manner to any unforeseen event that might require additional funding; recalls that, while the Union managed to put in place some mechanisms helping to cope with this situation, still over one hundred thousand refugees and migrants have arrived to Europe by sea so far in 2017 according to the UNHCR; decides therefore to reinforce in a limited manner the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund, as well as the agencies with responsibilities in the field of asylum, such as the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), which need to be provided with adequate financial and human resources; notes, once again, that the Heading 3 ceiling is vastly insufficient to provide for appropriate funding for the internal dimension of the migration and refugee crisis as well as other priority programmes, such as culture and citizenship programmes;

9.  Underlines that Heading 3 has been largely mobilised in recent years to address the migratory and refugee crisis and that such actions should continue for as long as needed; notes however that the funding provided so far is insufficient; decides for this reason to reinforce agencies in the field of Justice and Home Affairs which, due to increased workload and additional tasks, have been facing shortage of staff and funding in the past years;

10.   Underlines that, in light of recent security concerns across the Union, funding under Heading 3 should also have regard to measures which will lead to enhancing the security of Union citizens;

11.  Reiterates that an essential part of the solution to the migratory and refugee crisis as well as to the security concerns of Union citizens lie in addressing the root causes of migration and devoting sufficient financial means to external instruments that aim at tackling issues such as poverty, lack of employment, education and economic opportunities, instability, conflict and climate change which is one of the underlying causes behind increasing migration flows; is of the opinion that the Union should make an optimal use of financial means under Heading 4 which proved to be insufficient to equally address all external challenges, considering that the resources are clearly insufficient and should be increased in a more organic way

12.  Regrets that, while preparing its position, Parliament has not been sufficiently informed about the budgetary impact of a possible political decision to extend the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRT); reiterates its longstanding position that new initiatives shall not be financed to the detriment of existing EU external projects; calls therefore on the Commission, in the event of the prolongation of the FRT, to propose its financing through fresh means and involve more local NGOs in its implementation; notes that the Heading 4 ceiling is vastly insufficient to provide a sustainable and effective response to the current external challenges, including the migration and refugee ones;

13.  Recalls that the Union budget must support the fulfilment of the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the Union’s own long-term climate goals by achieving the target of 20 % climate spending in the 2014-2020 MFF; regrets that the Commission has failed to put forward concrete and realistic proposals to achieve these goals; therefore proposes increases above the level of the DB for climate-related actions; notes however that these increases are not sufficient and calls on the Commission to present all the necessary proposals to reach the goals in the forthcoming draft budgets; notes, in this context, that 8,2 % of total commitment appropriations proposed in the DB are related to biodiversity protection; highlights that an annual increase of 0,1 % stands in contrast to the worrying and accelerating decline in species and habitats;

14.  Appreciates that the new approach of 'Budget Focused on Results' has for the first time been integrated into the internal budgetary preparation of the Commission in order to review the expenditure based on experience achieved so far and identify possible adjustments;

15.  Restores the cuts proposed by Council to the DB; fails to understand the reasoning behind the proposed cuts, for example those to Horizon 2020 and Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), two programmes already affected by redeployments to EFSI, as well as those to external policies; contests, in any event, Council’s declared intention to target budget lines with a low execution rate or absorption capacity, as this is not substantiated by the actual implementation figures and ignores the varying implementation patterns of certain programmes; 


16.  Concludes that, for the purpose of adequately financing all pressing needs, and considering the very tight MFF margins in 2018, all means available in the MFF Regulation in terms of flexibility will need to be deployed; expects that the Council will share this approach and that an agreement will easily be reached in conciliation, allowing the Union to rise to the occasion and effectively respond to the challenges ahead; underlines that the deviation each budgetary year from the original programming under the current MFF advocates in favour of an upward adjustment of the ceilings in the MFF post-2020;

17.  Sets the overall level of appropriations for 2018 at EUR 162 597 930 901 in commitment appropriations and EUR 146 712 004 932 in payment appropriations; 


Subheading 1a – Competitiveness for growth and jobs

18.  Rejects Council’s unjustified EUR 750 million cuts to subheading 1a, which alone represent almost two thirds of the overall Council cuts in commitments in MFF headings; notes that such cuts contradicts Council’s own stated political priorities;

19.  Insists that in order to achieve sustainable growth and job creation in the Union, boosting investments in research, innovation, education, infrastructure and MSMEs is key; warns that such cuts proposed by the Council would jeopardise programmes with real European added value and a direct impact on job and growth creation, such as Horizon 2020 or CEF; points out, in particular, that sufficient funding for Horizon 2020 is essential to allow for the development of research and innovation, leadership in digitalisation and for the support of SMEs in Europe; recalls that this programme has demonstrated a strong European added-value with 83% of Horizon 2020-funded projects that would not have gone ahead without Union-level support; reiterates the importance of the CEF funding instrument for the completion of the TEN-T network and for achieving a Single European Transport Area; consequently decides to reverse all cuts made by the Council and, furthermore, to fully restore the original profile of the Horizon 2020 and CEF lines that were cut for the provisioning of the EFSI Guarantee Fund;

20.  Stresses, in addition, the need to strengthen both the education and training and the youth strands of Erasmus +, as part of strategic investment in European youth;

21.  Stresses that sufficient financial support for microenterprises, entrepreneurs and SMEs should be the key priority for the Union as these are the main source of job creation across Europe; emphasises that securing good access to finance is essential for keeping SMEs competitive and for helping them to overcome challenges related to access to the internal market as well as to the global market;

22.  Decides, therefore, to further reinforce beyond the DB and the pre-EFSI and pre-ESC profiles those programmes that are key to boosting growth and jobs and that reflect widely agreed Union priorities, namely Erasmus+, Horizon 2020 (Marie Curie, European Research Council, SME Instrument), COSME, and EaSI (Progress and Eures); calls on the Commission to provide sufficient funding for budget lines related to WIFI4EU and to keep its investment commitment between 2017 and 2020;

23.  Welcomes the inclusion of the Special Annual Events budget line in the 2018 Budget, which will allow the development of a sense of European belonging among citizens; notes that the scope of the Special Annual Event should demonstrably serve the added value to the European citizens across the Member States;

24.  Stresses the importance of stimulating cooperative defence research in Europe for addressing key capability shortfalls at a time when international developments and uncertainties increasingly require Europe to step up its efforts on defence; believes that additional expenses on the Union level in the field of defence research should be compensated by savings on the national level; supports the increased allocation for the Preparatory Action on defence research; calls for a defence research programme with a dedicated budget within the next Multiannual Financial Framework, reiterates, nevertheless, its longstanding position that new initiatives shall be financed through fresh appropriations and not to the detriment of existing Union programmes; underlines, furthermore, the need to improve the competitiveness and innovation in the European defence industry;

25.  Is of the opinion that increased resources should be allocated in the framework of the 2018 Budget in order to conduct a comprehensive and unbiased assessment of the risk posed by third countries in terms of their strategic deficiencies in the area of anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing, based on criteria defined in Article 9 of Directive (EU) 2015/849[8], and to establish a list of 'high-risk' jurisdictions;

26.  As a result, increases the level of commitment appropriations for subheading 1a above the DB by EUR 143,9 million (excluding pre-EFSI and pre-ESC restoration, pilot projects and preparatory actions), to be financed within the margin available as well as a further mobilisation of the Global Margin for Commitments;

Subheading 1b – Economic, social and territorial cohesion

27.  Disapproves of Council's proposed cuts of EUR 240 million in payments under Subheading 1b, including on support lines and reverses them, pending updated forecasts from the Commission;

28.  Notes with increasing concern that the unacceptable delays in the implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) have undermined their effectiveness and put pressure on the managing authorities and beneficiaries; reiterates once again the risk that the current delays can have on the accumulation of unpaid bills in the second half of this MFF and at the beginning of the next one; reiterates strongly its call on the Member States to seek advice and assistance from the Commission in order to address the delays in the designation of the managing, certifying and auditing authorities; is further alarmed by the downsize trend and the lack of accuracy of the Member States' estimates;

29.  Recalls that youth unemployment rates remain unacceptably high in the Union; emphasises that, in order to address this issue, it is of importance to ensure proper funding of the Youth Guarantee schemes through the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) and the ESF; welcomes the agreement on the need to provide fresh funding for the YEI, and the inclusion of the corresponding appropriations in the DB 2018; considers nevertheless that, given the challenges and risks posed by youth unemployment, the YEI should benefit from increased appropriations and therefore decides to bring the YEI to EUR 600 million in commitments in 2018; moreover, considers that professional training actions, towards the youth and in particular the apprenticeship should be eligible for financing under the cohesion policy;

30.  Welcomes the new EUR 142,8 million financial envelope which has been created to facilitate the implementation of the Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP) between 2017-2020;

Heading 2 – Sustainable growth: natural resources

31.  Recalls that the Commission’s proposal to increase appropriations to finance the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) needs are largely due to a significantly lower amount of assigned revenue being expected to be available in 2018; notes the Council’s cuts of EUR 275 million, but considers that the Commission’s Amending Letter should remain the basis for any reliable revision of EAGF appropriations and restores the DB levels accordingly, pending an examination of this Amending Letter in conciliation;

32.  Stresses that storage programmes have proved effective in times of crisis and that a reduction in the financial resources earmarked in the planning process would be counter-productive;

33.  Underlines that part of the solution to address youth unemployment lies in adequately supporting young people in rural areas; proposes therefore an increase of EUR 50 million above the level of the DB for payments for young farmers; emphasises the need to use the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and other Union funding schemes to facilitate young people’s access to jobs in the fishing industry;

34.  Decides, in line with its Europe 2020 targets and with its international commitments to tackle climate change, to propose an increase of EUR 21,2 million above the level of the DB for climate-related actions; reiterates that both the European Court of Auditors (ECA) as well as ECOFIN ascertained that the Union budget is not in line with its climate targets;

35.   Increases therefore commitment appropriations by EUR 78,1 million , thus leaving a margin of EUR 619,7 million below the ceiling for commitments in Heading 2 once pilot projects and preparatory actions have been deducted;

Heading 3 - Security and Citizenship

36.  Emphasises that for Parliament, tackling migration and security must remain top Union priorities and reiterates its conviction that the Heading 3 ceiling has proven vastly insufficient to fund adequately the internal dimension of those challenges;

37.  Notes that, while the number of migrant crossings on the Central and Eastern Mediterranean routes into the Union fell in the first nine months of 2017, pressure on the Western Mediterranean route remains; notes that more than one hundred thousand migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in the first nine months of 2017, with over 75 % arriving in Italy and the remainder divided between Greece, Cyprus and Spain; is of the opinion that increased funding is needed to fully cover the needs of the Union in the field of migration, notably through the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund to support Members States in improving integration measures and practices for those in need of international protection, especially unaccompanied minors, and, where necessary, carrying out return operations for those not entitled to protection while fully respecting the principle of non-refoulement; in this context also insists that the EASO shall be equipped with adequate financial and human resources to allow the agency to fulfil its assigned tasks;

38.  Is in favour of the creation of a new budget line for a Search and Rescue Fund to support Member States in their obligations under international maritime law; asks the Commission to present a legislative proposal to set up such an EU Search and Rescue Fund;

39.  Is convinced that, in order to effectively tackle security concerns of Union citizens, the budget of the Internal Security Fund needs additional funds to equip the Member States better in the fight against terrorism, cross-border organised crime, radicalisation and cybercrime; underlines, in particular, that sufficient resources must be provided for reinforcing security infrastructures and boosting information-sharing between law enforcement agencies and national authorities, including through improving the interoperability of information systems while guaranteeing at the same time respect for individual rights and liberties;

40.  Highlights the crucial role played by the EU agencies in the area of justice and home affairs in addressing pressing concerns of Union citizens; decides therefore to increase budgetary appropriations and staffing of Europol, including the creation of 7 staff posts for the new operating unit called Europol operating unit for missing children, as well as to reinforce the European Union’s Judicial Cooperation Unit (Eurojust), EASO and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL); reiterates the contribution of these agencies to enhancing cooperation between Member States in the field;

41.   Asks the Commission, in the light of the actual progress made in ongoing interinstitutional negotiations, to provide updated information on the financial implications in 2018 of pending legislative proposals as part of the European Agenda on Migration, in particular the reform of the Dublin system, the Entry/Exit System, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System and EASO, so that it can be taken into account in the conciliation phase;

42.  Regrets Council’s arbitrary cuts of more than EUR 30 million in commitment appropriations to numerous programmes in the areas of culture, citizenship, justice, public health, consumer rights and civil protection, in disregard of these programmes’ excellent implementation rates and despite already insufficient levels of financing that leave many high-quality projects unfunded; restores all lines to the level of the DB and proposes additional increases to relevant lines;

43.  Reiterates its conviction that it is time to boost funding for important Union programmes in the areas of culture and citizenship, in particular Creative Europe and Europe for Citizens, which have a key role in supporting cultural and creative industries, as well as participatory citizenship, especially in view of the European elections in 2019; reiterates that all institutions must honour the political agreement found on the 2018 funding for the European Year of Cultural Heritage by providing sufficient appropriations for it through Creative Europe’s Culture sub-programme, in the absence of a separate budget line for the Year; calls on the Commission to review initiatives under the ‘multimedia actions’ budget line to ensure that the budget effectively supports high-quality independent coverage of Union affairs;

44.  Is in favour of increased transparency of and visibility for the Daphne objective of the Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme, as a key Union tool in combatting all forms of violence against children, young people, women, LGBTI people and other at-risk groups; supports setting up a European monitoring centre on gender-based violence within the European Institute for Gender Equality;

45.  Reinforces Heading 3 by EUR 108,8 million in commitment appropriations above the DB, excluding pilot projects and preparatory actions, and proposes to finance these reinforcements by a further mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument;

Heading 4 – Global Europe

46.  Stresses once again that the Union’s external action is faced with ever growing funding needs which greatly exceed the current size of Heading 4; considers that the mobilisation of the Union budget to respond to the migration challenge will continue to require dynamic responses in the coming years; stresses that an ad hoc one-year increase, such as that in 2017, cannot be considered sufficient in view of the complex challenges that the Union is facing and the urgent need for stronger Union external presence in today’s global world;

47.  Is of the opinion that priority should be given to the Union’s immediate neighbours and to measures aimed at tackling the main issues they are facing, namely the migratory and refugee crisis and corresponding humanitarian challenges in the Southern Neighbourhood, and the Russian aggression in the Eastern Neighbourhood; believes that stability and prosperity of the EU Neighbourhood are beneficial to both the concerned regions and to the Union as a whole; reiterates its call to increase support to the Middle East Peace Process, the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA to cope with growing needs, in order to achieve the Union’s stated objective of promoting development and stability in the region and support the resilience of Palestinians; reiterates that supporting countries which are implementing association agreements with the Union is pivotal to facilitating political and economic reforms, but stresses that such support should apply as long as those countries meet the eligibility criteria, especially as regards the rule of law and enforcing democratic institutions; therefore decides to increase resources for the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI), for the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) and for Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA);

48.  Stresses the importance of the role that Europe plays at global level in eradicating poverty and ensuring development of the most deprived regions, in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals; therefore, allocates additional financial resources to the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) and Humanitarian Aid; recalls that, since a significant proportion of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea are coming from Sub-Saharan Africa, Union support in this region is key to tackling the root causes of migration;

49.  Opposes the drastic reductions in financial contributions from the external financing instruments (ENI, IPA, PI and DCI) to Erasmus+, despite the fact that youth exchange programs are one of the most successful long-term investments into cultural diplomacy and mutual understanding, and decides therefore to increase these contributions;

50.  In view of the worrying deterioration of the situation as regards democracy, rule of law and human rights, decides to decrease the support for political reforms in Turkey; decides to put part of the remaining appropriations in reserve to be released when Turkey makes measurable improvements in the fields of rule of law, democracy, human rights and press freedom, with the aim of redirecting these funds to civil society actors for implementing measures supportive of these objectives;

51.  Is of the opinion that in order to adequately tackle disinformation campaigns, and to promote an objective image of the Union outside its borders, additional financial means are needed; calls therefore to step up funding to counter disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks; decides therefore to increase resources for strategic communication actions to be carried out in the Neighbourhood as well as in the Western Balkans; recalls the importance of investing in the visibility of the Union's external action in order to strengthen the impact of funding in that field and enhance EU public diplomacy in line with the ambitions of the Global Strategy;

52.  Deems it necessary to increase appropriations for the Turkish Cypriot Community budget line for the purpose of contributing decisively to the continuation and intensification of the mission of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus and of supporting the bicommunal Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage, thus promoting trust and reconciliation between the two communities;

53. Stresses that the trend by the Commission to resort to satellite budgetary mechanisms such as trust funds and other similar instruments has not always proven to be a success; is concerned that the establishment of financial instruments outside the Union budget could threaten its unity and circumvent the budgetary procedure and at the same time undermine the transparent management of the budget and hamper the right of the Parliament to exercise effective scrutiny of expenditures; considers, therefore, that external instruments which emerged in recent years must be incorporated into the Union budget, with Parliament having full scrutiny over the implementation of these instruments; notes that by end of September 2017 a total of EUR 795,4 million has been committed for EU Trust Funds in the 2017 Budget; asks the Commission to present to the two arms of the budgetary authority the amount it intends to commit in 2018 to the Trust Funds; reiterates its concern that Member State contributions to these Trust Funds tend to lag behind their pledges; takes note of the ECA Special Report 11/2017 on the Bekou EU Trust Fund for the Central African Republic; is concerned about the deficiencies identified by the ECA, such as the lack of assessment for overall needs and the dysfunctional coordination mechanisms with other donors; expresses its intention to assess the added value of EU Trust Funds as an instrument of Union external policy;

54. Recalls that in accordance with Article 24 of the MFF Regulation, all expenditures and revenues of the Union and Euratom shall be entered in the general budget of the Union in accordance with Article 7 of the Financial Regulation; calls on the Commission to preserve the unity of the budget and to consider it as a guiding principle when introducing new initiatives;

55.  Stresses the importance of election observation missions in strengthening democratic institutions and building public confidence in electoral processes, which in return promote peace-building and stability; emphasises the need to ensure sufficient financial resources for that objective;

56.  Points out that DCI funding shall not be redeployed in order to finance the new Capacity Building for Security and Development (CBSD) initiative under the IcSP; deplores the draft budget proposal to redeploy EUR 7,5 million from the DCI to the CBSD and stresses the urgent need to find alternative solutions to fill this gap;

57.  Reiterates its request that the budget line for EU Special Representatives be transferred, in a budget-neutral manner, from the CFSP budget to the administrative budget of the EEAS in order to further consolidate the Union's diplomatic activities;

58.  As a result, decides to reverse almost all of the Council’s cuts and to reinforce Heading 4 by EUR 299,7 million above the DB in commitment appropriations (excluding pilot projects and preparatory actions, the transfer of EUSRs and adopted cuts);

Heading 5 - Administration; Other headings - administrative and research support expenditure

59.  Considers that Council’s cuts do not reflect the real needs and thus jeopardise the already significantly rationalised administrative expenditure; restores therefore the DB for all Commission administrative expenditure, including administrative and research support expenditure in Headings 1 to 4;

60.  Decides, in line with the conclusion of the "Joint Opinion of the Legal Services of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on three aspects of the relationship between OLAF and its Supervisory Committee" of 12 September 2016, to hold 10% of appropriations of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) until the Supervisory Committee is granted access to OLAF cases files, while slightly reinforcing its budget, in line with increased responsibilities;

61.  Takes note that, at the beginning of 2017, OLAF investigated a severe case of customs fraud in the UK which was caused by undervaluation of imported products and which has created a loss of income of almost EUR 2 billion for the Union budget in the period 2013-2016; is concerned that that fraud has not been stopped to date and that losses to the Union budget are still ongoing; asks the Commission to take into account the slow reaction of the UK administration to its recommendations in this regard when negotiating Brexit; asks those Member States that objected to the Union legal framework for customs infringements and sanctions to reconsider their position in order to allow for a speedy solution of this problem; 


Decentralised Agencies

62.  Endorses, as a general rule, the Commission's estimates of the budgetary needs of agencies; considers, therefore, that any further cuts proposed by the Council would endanger the proper functioning of the agencies and would not allow them to fulfil the tasks they have been assigned; considers that the new posts adopted in its position are needed to fulfil additional tasks due to new policy developments and new legislation; reiterates its commitment to safeguard resources and where necessary provide additional resources as to ensure the proper functioning of the agencies;;

63.  In the context of the challenges the Union is still facing in terms of migration and security, and bearing in mind the necessity for a coordinated European response, decides to reinforce the appropriations for the European Police Office (Europol), Eurojust, CEPOL, EASO and the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA);

64.  Recalls the importance for the Union focusing on competitiveness for growth and jobs; recalls the strategic priority for the Union of fully developing and implementing its Galileo and EGNOS projects for which the European GNSS Agency (GSA) is partially responsible; recalls the GSA has a resourcing gap for cyber security and public regulated service and decides, therefore, to increases its level of appropriations;

65.  Considers that additional appropriation and staff are needed for the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) to fulfil its expanded mission related to the implementation of the electricity and gas network codes and guidelines and its monitoring;

66.  Recalls in particular that EEA helps the Union to make informed decisions about improving the environment, integrating environmental considerations into economic policies and moving towards sustainability, and that, in the context of the 2030 Union climate and energy policy, the Commission has proposed new work for EEA on the Governance of the Energy Union, without any corresponding increase in the establishment table;

67.  Stresses that while the budgetary resources and the number of posts for the European Border and Coast Guard seem adequate for the time being, the future needs of the agency in terms of operational resources and staff will have to be closely monitored;

68.Welcomes the inclusion of adequate resources provided for in the 2018 budget to support the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs); underlines that the role of the ESAs is essential in fostering the consistent application of Union law and better coordination between national authorities, and in ensuring financial stability, better integrated financial markets and consumer protection and supervisory convergence; emphasises that in the interest of a prudent use of their budgets, the ESAs must stick to the tasks and to the mandate assigned to them by the European legislator;

69.  Reiterates that, as agreed in the IIA of 2 December 2013, 2018 is the last year of implementation of the 5% staff reduction and redeployment pool approach to the staffing of agencies; reiterates its opposition to any continuation of a global approach on agency resources after 2018; reaffirms its openness to achieving efficiency gains between agencies through increased administrative cooperation or even mergers where appropriate and through pooling certain functions with either the Commission or another agency; welcomes in this regard the initiative to further coordinate agencies activities via establishing the Network of EU Agencies’ Permanent Secretariat (now called the Shared Support Office) and supports the allocation of an additional establishment plan post to the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) whose costs will be mutualised from the Union Agencies’ existing budgets and seconded to that office;

Pilot projects and preparatory actions (PP-PAs)

70.  Having carried out a careful analysis of the pilot projects and preparatory actions submitted as regards the rate of success of the on-going ones, excluding initiatives already covered by existing legal bases and taking fully into account the Commission's assessment of the projects' implementability, decides to adopt a compromise package made up of a limited number of PP-PAs, in view also of the limited margins available and the ceilings for PP-PAs;

71.  Stresses therefore the efforts made by the Parliament in this regard and asks the Commission to show good will in the implementation of the adopted PP-PAs at the end of the budgetary procedure, regardless of its implementability assessment, as for any decision of the European Parliament and the Council;

Special instruments

72.  Recalls the usefulness of special instruments to provide flexibility over and beyond the extremely tight ceilings of the current MFF and welcomes the improvements brought about by the mid-term revision of the MFF Regulation; calls for an extensive use of the Flexibility instrument, the Global Margin for Commitments and the Contingency Margin in order to finance the wide range of new challenges and additional responsibilities that the Union budget is facing;

73.  Recalls also the significance of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), the Emergency Aid Reserve (EAR) and the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF); supports the Commission’s intention to provide for a quicker mobilisation of the EUSF by putting most of its annual amount in a reserve in the Union budget, on top of the amount already budgeted for advances; regrets the Council’s cut in that respect and restores partially the DB level, with the exception of the amount which has been frontloaded to 2017 via amending budget 4/2017 and the mobilisation of the EUSF for Italy; calls for the extension of the scope of the EUSF to provide assistance to victims of acts of terrorism and their families;

Payments

74.  Is concerned about the current under-execution trend in payments throughout the Union budget, not only in subheading1b but also in Headings 3 and 4, despite the need to answer the surge of new challenges and the setting-up of flexible funding mechanisms; recalls that for the past two years the payment level of the Union budget was considerably decreased, coupled with a high level of budget surplus; expresses, therefore, its concern that the DB still leaves an unprecedented margin of EUR 10 billion below the payment ceiling, which reflects a low execution trend that may lead to an acute payment pressure at the end of the current MFF;

75.   Insists on the necessity to restore the DB in payments on all lines cut by the Council and reinforces payment appropriations in targeted manner, mostly on those lines which are amended in commitment appropriations;

Other Sections

76.  Regrets the repeated Council practice of increasing the standard flat rate abatement for the Union institutions; believes this to have a particularly distorting effect on the budgets of institutions with historically accurate abatement rates; considers that this approach does not constitute a targeted reduction nor sound financial management; restores therefore the abatement rate at the level of the DB;

Section I – European Parliament

77.  Maintains the overall level of its budget for 2018, as adopted in its abovementioned resolution of 5 April 2017, at EUR 1 953 483 373; incorporates budgetary-neutral technical adjustments to reflect updated information which was not available earlier this year;

78.  Notes that the level of estimates for 2018 corresponds to 18,88 %, which is lower than that achieved in 2017 (19,25 %) and the lowest part of Heading 5 in the past fifteen years;

79.  Reiterates Parliament’s priorities for the forthcoming financial year, namely, consolidating the security measures already taken and improving Parliament’s resilience to cyber-attacks; improving the transparency of the Parliament’s own internal budgetary procedure; and focusing the Parliament’s budget on its core functions of legislating, acting as one arm of the budgetary authority, representing citizens and scrutinising the work of other institutions;

80.  Welcomes the creation of the Parliament's Bureau Working group on the general expenditure allowance; recalls the expectations of greater transparency regarding the general expenditure allowance and a need to work on a definition of more precise rules regarding the accountability of the expenditure authorised under this allowance, without generating additional costs to Parliament;

81.  Reduces the establishment plan of its General Secretariat for 2018 by 60 posts (1 % staff reduction target), in accordance with the agreement of 14 November 2015 reached with the Council on the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2016; recalls that the 35 posts granted to Parliament in 2016 related to new activities reinforcing security and, as such were exempted from the staff reduction target, as confirmed at the adoption of the Amending Budget No 3/2016 and the 2017 general budget[9]; calls on the Commission to adjust its monitoring tables accordingly in order to provide to the budgetary authority with accurate information at all steps of the procedure;

82.  Welcomes the exchange of views on Parliament’s building policy held on 11 July 2017 between the Committee on Budgets, the Secretary General and the Vice-Presidents responsible for Parliament’s building policy; considers that this dialogue ought to be a continuous process, particularly in the light of upcoming Bureau discussions on the refurbishment of the Paul Henri-Spaak building;

83.  Reiterates Parliament’s position as expressed in its abovementioned resolution of 5 April 2017 that there is further room for improvement on the control mechanisms related to European political parties and political foundations; notes in this regard the Commission’s proposal to amend Regulation No 1141/2014[10] and welcomes any effort to improve the accountability and transparency of spending;

84.  Recalls the 2014 ECA analysis which estimated the costs of the geographic dispersion of the Parliament to be EUR 114 million per year; furthermore, notes the finding from its resolution of 23 October 2013 on the location of the seats of the European Union’s Institutions[11] that 78 % of all missions by Parliament statutory staff arise as a direct result of the Parliament's geographic dispersion; emphasises that the report also estimates the environmental impact of the geographic dispersion to be between 11 000 to 19 000 tonnes of CO2 emissions; reiterates the negative public perception caused by this dispersion and calls therefore for a roadmap to a single seat and a reduction in the relevant budget lines;

Section IV - Court of Justice

85.  Restores the DB on all budget items cut by the Council which are essential to the functioning of the Court and restores the estimates for two budget items in order to enhance the Court’s ability to deal with increasingly high translation demands;

86.  Expresses its disbelief at the unilateral statement of the Council and the related appendix on the 5 % staff reduction in the Council’s position on the 2018 draft budget according to which the Court still needs to reduce its establishment plan by 19 posts; underlines that those 19 posts correspond to the 12 and 7 posts duly granted by Parliament and the Council in the 2015 and 2016 budgetary procedures respectively to address additional needs and insists therefore that those 19 posts should not be given back, the Court having already duly achieved its 5 % staff reduction requirement by suppressing 98 posts during the period 2013-2017;

Section V - Court of Auditors

87.  Restores the DB on all items cut by Council, in order to implement the work programme of the Court of Auditors and deliver the planned Audit Reports;

88.  Places a reserve on the item “Limited consultations, studies and surveys” pending the outcome of the on-going negotiations on the revision of the Financial Regulation, and the revision entering into force in 2018;

Section VI - European Economic and Social Committee

89.  Restores the DB on all items cut by the Council;

90.  Increases two lines above the DB in relation to the work of Domestic Advisory Groups in trade agreements;

Section VII - Committee of the Regions

91.  Restores the DB on all items cut by the Council;

92.  Increases a number of lines above the draft budget in line with the Committee of the Region’s own estimates;

Section VIII - European Ombudsman

93.  Welcomes the work done by the Ombudsman in finding efficiency savings in her own budget when compared with the previous year;

Section IX - European Data Protection Supervisor

94.  Questions why the Council would reduce the budget of the European Data Protection Supervisor given the additional tasks conferred upon the institution by Parliament and the Council; restores therefore all the budget lines cut by Council to enable the European Data Protection Supervisor to fulfil his obligations and commitments;

Section X- European External Action Service

95.  Restores all lines cut by the Council;

96.  Creates a Strategic Communication Capacity budget item in line with the European Council conclusions of March 2015 and to equip the EEAS with adequate staff and tools to face the challenge of disinformation from third states and non-state actors;

97.  Decides furthermore to transfer EU Special Representatives from the CFSP chapter to the EEAS budget to strengthen the coherence of the EU's external action;

98.  Provides an additional amount above the EEAS estimates for trainees in Union Delegations, in response to the findings of the European Ombudsman’s inquiry into unpaid traineeships[12];

o

o  o

99. Takes note of the unilateral statement of France and Luxembourg annexed to the Council's position on the draft budget for 2018, as adopted on 4 September 2017; recalls that representatives of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed on the pragmatic calendar for the conduct of the budgetary procedure, including the dates for the conciliation period, at the Spring budgetary trilogue on 27 March 2017; recalls that the General Affairs Council approved that pragmatic calendar at its meeting of 25 April 2017, in full knowledge of the Parliament's calendar of part-sessions for 2017; notes, therefore, that the budgetary procedure is proceeding in conformity with the pragmatic calendar agreed between the three institutions;

100.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution, together with the amendments to the draft general budget, to the Council, the Commission, the other institutions and bodies concerned and the national parliaments.

  • [1]  OJ L 168, 7.6.2014, p. 105.
  • [2]  OJ L 298, 26.10.2012, p. 1.
  • [3]  OJ L 347, 20.12.2013, p. 884.
  • [4]  OJ C 373, 20.12.2013, p. 1.
  • [5]  Texts adopted of that date, P8_TA(2017)0085.
  • [6]  Texts adopted of that date, P8_TA(2017)0114.
  • [7]  Texts adopted of that date, P8_TA(2017)0302.
  • [8]  Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, amending Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and repealing Directive 2005/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Commission Directive 2006/70/EC (OJ L 141, 5.6.2015, p. 73).
  • [9]  Texts adopted, P8_TA(2016)0401 / P8_TA(2016)0411.
  • [10]  2017/0219(COD).
  • [11]  Texts adopted, P7_TA(2013)0498.
  • [12]  European Ombudsman, 454.2014/PMC.

OPINION of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (4.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Cristian Dan Preda

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Foreign Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Notes with concern the Commission proposal for more than a half a billion euro decrease in both commitment and payment appropriations for Heading 4 expenditure (Global Europe); stresses that an ad hoc one-year increase, such as that in 2017, cannot be considered sufficient in view of the multiple complex challenges that the Union is facing and the need for stronger EU external action, in line with the EU Global Strategy;

2.  Underlines that, while greater flexibility is needed in order to enhance the Union's crisis response capacity, this must not come at the cost of existing priority areas of the External Financing Instruments and long-term policies; calls for the margin of over EUR 230 million in Heading 4 to be allocated and the necessary flexibility to be ensured through the available mechanisms of the Multiannual Financial Framework;

3.  Draws attention to recent worrying political developments in the Western Balkans that require the Union's urgent attention and an active and better focused support towards Western Balkans countries in order to avoid progress achieved in the past decades being put into question and to consolidate their path toward EU accession; rejects, therefore, the proposed cut of almost EUR 90 million to support for political reforms in the region under the Instrument for Pre-Accession assistance (IPA); recalls that support for candidate countries and potential candidate countries in adopting and implementing political, economic and social reforms in view of their EU accession is an important tool to foster stability and that losing the prospect of EU accession could open those countries to the influence of third countries with the risk of undermining stability and security of the region;

4.  Rejects the proposed increase in support for political reforms in Turkey under IPA in view of the lack of serious engagement by Turkish authorities in this area and deterioration of the situation as regards democracy, rule of law and human rights; underscores the need to step up investment in direct support to civil society and refugees in Turkey as well as to people-to-people exchange programmes, such as Erasmus+, for students, academics and journalists; calls on the Commission to put measures in place to redirect the IPA funds towards supporting civil society and calls for an increase in European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) funding earmarked for direct support to civil society in Turkey;

5.  Underlines the strategic importance of both the Southern and Eastern neighbourhood for the Union and demands that the proposed decrease of resources for the European Neighbourhood Instrument (ENI) is avoided; supports the pledge of April 2017 Brussels Conference for an increased assistance in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon and stresses that a corresponding reinforcement of ENI should be foreseen; underscores the importance of continuing to support Tunisia as a potential example of democratic transition in the region and of maintaining the Union's pivotal role in supporting the Middle East Peace Process, the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA; underlines moreover the need for increased support to enhance stability in Libya and accompany the country's transition towards an inclusive democracy ensuring respect of human rights; calls on the Commission to respect and step up its ENI commitments to provide funding for projects promoting the employability of young people locally; takes positive note of the slight increase of funding for the Eastern Partnership countries under ENI and draws attention to the fact that, given the current challenges, further increases should be envisaged;

6.  Opposes the drastic reductions of financial contributions from the external financial instruments ENI, IPA, PI and DCI to Erasmus+, despite the fact that youth exchange programs can be considered as one of the most successful long-term investments into cultural diplomacy and mutual understanding, and calls rather for an increase of these contributions;

7.  Welcomes the fact that the proposed appropriations for the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP) return to their pre-2017 levels and are further strengthened in view of new capacity building tasks which should result from the ongoing revision of the IcSP regulation, and furthermore recognises the potential inherent in the IcSP for promoting Union security and border integrity;

8.  Welcomes the steps taken as a result of the last budgetary negotiations to allow for increased parliamentary scrutiny of activities falling under the Union's Trust Funds and the Turkey Refugee Facility; recalls that such ad hoc instruments should only be resorted to if the requirements in terms of Union added value and additionality are met; reiterates its call for Member States to substantially increase contributions to the Trust Funds and to ensure timely delivery of the pledges made under the Turkey Refugee Facility;

9.  Recalls the importance of investing in the visibility of the Union's external action in order to strengthen the impact of funding in that field and enhance EU public diplomacy in line with the ambitions of the Global Strategy;

10.  Calls for further stepping up funding to counter disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks, which are increasingly used to undermine democratic order in countries in the Union's neighbourhood, as well as in the Union itself; calls in particular for increased resources for strategic communication actions;

11.  Stresses the importance of stimulating cooperative defence research in Europe for addressing key capability shortfalls at a time when international developments increasingly require Europe to step up its efforts on defence; fully supports the increased allocation for the Preparatory Action on defence research; welcomes the European defence industrial policy proposed by the Commission and urges that it be geared to meet the needs of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as a matter of priority;

12.  Welcomes the new External Investment Plan to increase investment in Africa and in the EU neighbourhood; underscores the need to ensure that the focus on encouraging private sector investment does not divert funding from long-term priorities in those regions, including the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals;

13.  Underlines once again the importance of the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, including its support for election observation, stressing that respect of human rights, democracy and the rule of law are key for stability and prosperity in the world; welcomes the increase in funding of that Instrument, which should be further reinforced;

14.  Calls for a lessons learned exercise to be carried out in order to identify shortcomings and improve the coordination between the Union's external financing instruments and financing instruments of other international institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other development/financing institution, in order to create synergies and maximise the impact of the financing instruments in developing countries;

15.  Reiterates its request for the budget line for the EU Special Representatives to be transferred in a budget neutral manner from the CFSP budget to the EEAS in order to strengthen the coherence of the Union’s external action.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

30.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

49

12

5

Members present for the final vote

Lars Adaktusson, Petras Auštrevičius, Mario Borghezio, Klaus Buchner, James Carver, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, Lorenzo Cesa, Andi Cristea, Georgios Epitideios, Knut Fleckenstein, Anna Elżbieta Fotyga, Eugen Freund, Michael Gahler, Iveta Grigule, Sandra Kalniete, Manolis Kefalogiannis, Tunne Kelam, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, Andrey Kovatchev, Ilhan Kyuchyuk, Ryszard Antoni Legutko, Barbara Lochbihler, Sabine Lösing, Andrejs Mamikins, Alex Mayer, David McAllister, Tamás Meszerics, Francisco José Millán Mon, Javier Nart, Pier Antonio Panzeri, Demetris Papadakis, Ioan Mircea Paşcu, Alojz Peterle, Julia Pitera, Cristian Dan Preda, Jozo Radoš, Sofia Sakorafa, Alyn Smith, Jordi Solé, Jaromír Štětina, Dubravka Šuica, Charles Tannock, Ivo Vajgl, Elena Valenciano, Hilde Vautmans, Anders Primdahl Vistisen, Boris Zala

Substitutes present for the final vote

Elisabetta Gardini, Neena Gill, Ana Gomes, András Gyürk, Takis Hadjigeorgiou, Liisa Jaakonsaari, Marek Jurek, Urmas Paet, Mirosław Piotrowski, Miroslav Poche, José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Bodil Valero, Marie-Christine Vergiat, Janusz Zemke, Željana Zovko

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Seb Dance, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, Marie-Pierre Vieu, Ivan Štefanec

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

49

+

ALDE

Petras Auštrevičius, Iveta Grigule, Ilhan Kyuchyuk, Javier Nart, Urmas Paet, Jozo Radoš, Ivo Vajgl, Hilde Vautmans

PPE

Lars Adaktusson, Lorenzo Cesa, Michael Gahler, Elisabetta Gardini, András Gyürk, Sandra Kalniete, Manolis Kefalogiannis, Tunne Kelam, Andrey Kovatchev, David McAllister, Francisco José Millán Mon, Alojz Peterle, Julia Pitera, Cristian Dan Preda, José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Željana Zovko, Ivan Štefanec, Jaromír Štětina, Dubravka Šuica

S&D

Andi Cristea, Seb Dance, Knut Fleckenstein, Eugen Freund, Neena Gill, Ana Gomes, Liisa Jaakonsaari, Andrejs Mamikins, Alex Mayer, Pier Antonio Panzeri, Demetris Papadakis, Ioan Mircea Paşcu, Miroslav Poche, Elena Valenciano, Boris Zala, Janusz Zemke

Verts/ALE

Klaus Buchner, Barbara Lochbihler, Tamás Meszerics, Alyn Smith, Jordi Solé, Bodil Valero

12

-

ECR

Anders Primdahl Vistisen

EFDD

James Carver, Fabio Massimo Castaldo

ENF

Mario Borghezio, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser

GUE/NGL

Takis Hadjigeorgiou, Sabine Lösing, Sofia Sakorafa, Marie-Christine Vergiat, Marie-Pierre Vieu

NI

Georgios Epitideios, Janusz Korwin-Mikke

5

0

ECR

Anna Elżbieta Fotyga, Marek Jurek, Ryszard Antoni Legutko, Mirosław Piotrowski, Charles Tannock

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Development (27.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Charles Goerens

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Development calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Underlines that the development assistance from the EU budget needs to be kept at least at the level foreseen in the MFF and maintain its focus on long-term efforts to eradicate poverty; calls for there to be a special focus on least developed countries;

2.  Recognises that no country has ever developed without engaging in further trade relations with its neighbours and the rest of the world; further encourages the financing of aid for trade activities, in order to allow developing countries to participate to a much greater degree in global value chains in the future; stresses in this context that such financing should contribute to inclusive and sustainable growth, as well as promoting high labour and environmental standards; further stresses the increasing importance of digital connectivity in order to achieve a more balanced distribution of the globalisation benefits in favour of developing countries;

3.  Stresses that the dramatic humanitarian needs triggered by unprecedented conflicts and climate change-related catastrophes, necessitate the full use of the margin in heading IV to address this challenge and help prevent new crises; stresses the need to step up European humanitarian aid, also beyond Europe's neighbourhood;

4.  Emphasises the need for the EU budget to adequately contribute to the delivery of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); recalls that its implementation has to cut across the Union’s internal and external policies, as well as integrate in a balanced and coherent manner the three dimensions of sustainable development, addressing the interlinkages between the different SDGs;

5.  Notes that the requirement that 20 % of the assistance under the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI) be allocated to basic social services, in particular health and education, is not being fulfilled for the period 2014-2017[1]; considers that an increase in the investment in human development, especially in access to sexual and reproductive health and rights is necessary to help counter the negative impact of the reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule;

6.  Recalls that in the 2017 budget, the DCI-human development budget line was reduced compared to the initial multi-annual planning; notes that the Commission stated that this was merely a backloading exercise and not a cut to the programme; considers it therefore important to preserve a substantial increase of the human development budget line in comparison to last year's budget;

7.  Underlines the high importance of supporting micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises and calls in particular for a further strengthening of micro-finance loan and guarantee systems;

8.  Encourages the establishment of vocational dual training institutions in developing countries in which young people, while undergoing a professional apprenticeship programme with an emphasis on practical aspects of a profession will have theoretical lectures at specialised professional schools;

9.  Calls for an enlargement of the "Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs" programme beyond Europe in particular to developing countries while providing the necessary financial means;

10.  Considers that the mobilisation of the EU budget to respond to the migration challenge should be accompanied by a common policy in this field; stresses that development aid must not be made conditional on cooperation in migration matters such as border management or readmission agreements; recalls that the migrant and refugee crisis has significantly impacted the EU budget and will continue to require dynamic responses in the coming years;

11.  Fully recognises the complex nature of many challenges and the need for multifaceted and complementary response actions, but insists on the need for clarity in funding arrangements and respect for international commitments; reiterates its rejection of the use of development funds for non-development objectives and underlines that funding that does not fulfil official development assistance (ODA) criteria must be sourced from other instruments than the DCI; deplores the lack of parliamentary scrutiny over the new trust funds; stresses that any mechanisms that benefit from the DCI, in particular the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, should serve genuine long-term development objectives and respond to partner countries’ development needs and not donors’ political objectives; points to its opinion of 5 July 2017 on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 230/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2014 establishing an instrument contributing to stability and peace, which excludes any contribution from the DCI to finance the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace;

12.  Emphasises that the Union and its Member States must honour their collective commitment, confirmed in 2015, to raise their ODA to 0,7 % of their GNI by 2030; calls on the Commission and the Member States to present binding timelines for progressive increases towards this level;

13.  Underlines the importance of increasing the attribution of funds aiming at supporting good governance, democracy and the rule of law in developing counties in order to promote accountable and transparent institutions, support capacity building and foster participatory decision-making and public access to information;

14.  Reiterates that the United Kingdom’s contribution amounts to 15 % of the EU's development aid budget; calls on the Commission and the Council to engage in a reflection on the ambition and priorities of EU development aid after Brexit;

15.  Considers that the proliferation of trust funds, resorted to because of the lack of resources, undermines the unity of the budget and is at odds with the requirements of transparency and democratic accountability; reiterates that the budgetisation of the European Development Fund (EDF) on the one hand and the creation of a specific instrument for financing security expenses linked to development cooperation on the other, would strengthen the effectiveness of EU action.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

25.9.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

15

1

1

Members present for the final vote

Doru-Claudian Frunzulică, Charles Goerens, Enrique Guerrero Salom, Heidi Hautala, Maria Heubuch, György Hölvényi, Stelios Kouloglou, Vincent Peillon, Maurice Ponga, Elly Schlein, Paavo Väyrynen, Bogdan Brunon Wenta

Substitutes present for the final vote

Agustín Díaz de Mera García Consuegra, Frank Engel, Paul Rübig, Adam Szejnfeld

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

David Coburn

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

15

+

ALDE

Charles Goerens, Paavo Väyrynen

PPE

Agustín Díaz de Mera García Consuegra, Frank Engel, György Hölvényi, Maurice Ponga, Paul Rübig, Adam Szejnfeld, Bogdan Brunon Wenta

S&D

Doru-Claudian Frunzulică, Enrique Guerrero Salom, Vincent Peillon, Elly Schlein

Verts/ALE

Heidi Hautala, Maria Heubuch

1

-

EFDD

David Coburn

1

0

GUE/NGL

Stelios Kouloglou

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

  • [1]  https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/sites/devco/files/draft-eval-report-dci_en.pdf

OPINION of the Committee on International Trade (30.8.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Reimer Böge

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on International Trade calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Stresses that international trade is a core tool for Union foreign policy which, if sufficiently funded and implemented by means of coherent strategies, contributes to sustainable development, particularly in developing countries;

2.  Notes that the Union has an increasingly ambitious trade agenda, as outlined in the ‘Trade for all’ strategy; stresses that the funding for Aid for Trade initiatives, including measures to support local and intraregional trade, should be increased and sufficient resources should be allocated to the Commission’s Directorate General for Trade to enable it to carry out the increasing number of activities, in particular to ensure the implementation and enforcement of the provisions included in both bilateral and multilateral agreements, and to increase the coherence of the Commission’s trade policy agenda with the Union’s global action goals and the requirement of policy coherence for development without reducing or redirecting the budget allocated to development cooperation; stresses that the funding for Aid for Trade represents a vital tool to develop structures and projects, in particular in LDCs; considers that such an initiative and funding should be increased; furthermore asks the Commission to coordinate its implementation in order to maximise its effectiveness; highlights the importance of assessing such agreements reiterates the need to adequately support the Union’s trade strategy as one of the key pillars of its foreign policy;

3.  Underlines the urgent need for a thorough reorganisation of the Union budget and its structure in the context of the review of the next MFF and with regard to the trade policy agenda, and calls on the Commission to take the initiative on this vis à vis the Council and Parliament;

4.  Notes that the citizens of the Union are increasingly asking to be more involved and engaged with Union trade policy and that the Commission has made this citizens’ interest a priority; stresses in this regard that it is crucial that enough resources are allocated in order to actively involve citizens in Union trade policy-making and to raise a higher degree of awareness of its benefits among Union citizens; calls for the inclusion of Domestic Advisory Groups and Joint Platforms into citizens’ dialogue as they are the main vehicles for achieving the effective participation of civil society in the enforcement and monitoring of trade sustainability chapters of trade agreements; calls for the development of the key performance indicators against which they wish to assess the performance of customs administrations at national and Union level; calls on Member States to take a more active role in explaining the added value of Union trade policy since it is the Member States that formulate the negotiating mandates;

5.  Stresses that fair international trade is a core tool for Union foreign policy which, if it is sufficiently funded and implemented by means of coherent political, economic, trade and development strategies, contributes to sustainable development, particularly in developing countries, thus enabling the Union to play an active role in tackling the causes of migration;

6.  Emphasises that the trade-related technical support and economic assistance provided by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) to the Union’s close partners on the southern and eastern borders make an important contribution to stability in those regions;

7.  Believes that a higher funding level of the Macro Financial Assistance is required to ensure that future requests for loans or grants can be accommodated if they are justified, and provided that the conditions set by Parliament are met; stresses that Macro Financial Assistance should not create a fresh dependency for recipient countries through corresponding repayment conditions; believes that in the longer term the integration of the MFA instrument into the European Neighbourhood Program Instrument should be considered in order to increase the coherence of Union action;

8.  Asks the Commission to assess the existing tools aimed at promoting SME internationalisation regarding their coherence with other Union SME support instruments, such as COSME, as well as regarding subsidiarity, non-duplication and complementarity in relation to Member State programmes; calls on the Commission to make timely proposals for the midterm review of those programmes in order to improve their efficiency and effectiveness;

9.  Recalls that any new Union initiatives, including those in the field of defence, should be financed by additional funds and should not be detrimental to existing budget lines;

10.  Notes that, albeit producing varying results, the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) is under-budgeted, does not operate systematically and is thus inadequate to balance the side effects of automation, digitalisation and globalisation; notes the success of similar initiatives in comparable economies; underlines the need for additional funds and resources to finance the EGF and to increase its effectiveness and its operability; considers, in this regard, that the elimination of unnecessary burdens is key to achieving a higher degree of efficiency; underlines the importance of training in providing unemployed workers with the tools needed for successful reintegration into the labour market;

11.  Recalls that the Union has a duty to mainstream gender equality in all its policies and acknowledges that trade policy can have different gender impacts across the various sectors of the economy; calls for the inclusion of gender chapters in all the newly negotiated trade agreements and to provide the necessary resources for their implementation, including ex-ante, ex-durante and ex-post impact assessments with data broken down by gender.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

30.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

26

1

7

Members present for the final vote

Maria Arena, Tiziana Beghin, Daniel Caspary, Salvatore Cicu, Christofer Fjellner, Yannick Jadot, Jude Kirton-Darling, Patricia Lalonde, David Martin, Emmanuel Maurel, Emma McClarkin, Anne-Marie Mineur, Sorin Moisă, Alessia Maria Mosca, Franz Obermayr, Franck Proust, Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl, Viviane Reding, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero Fernández, Tokia Saïfi, Marietje Schaake, Helmut Scholz, Joachim Schuster, Joachim Starbatty, Adam Szejnfeld, Iuliu Winkler

Substitutes present for the final vote

Reimer Böge, Nicola Danti, Seán Kelly, Sander Loones, Bolesław G. Piecha, Jarosław Wałęsa

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Beatriz Becerra Basterrechea, Arne Lietz

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

26

+

ALDE

Beatriz Becerra Basterrechea, Patricia Lalonde, Marietje Schaake

PPE

Reimer Böge, Daniel Caspary, Salvatore Cicu, Christofer Fjellner, Seán Kelly, Franck Proust, Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl, Viviane Reding, Tokia Saïfi, Adam Szejnfeld, Jarosław Wałęsa, Iuliu Winkler

S&D

Maria Arena, Nicola Danti, Jude Kirton-Darling, Arne Lietz, David Martin, Emmanuel Maurel, Sorin Moisă, Alessia Maria Mosca, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Piñero Fernández, Joachim Schuster

Verts/ALE

Yannick Jadot

1

-

ENF

Franz Obermayr

7

0

ECR

Sander Loones, Emma McClarkin, Bolesław G. Piecha, Joachim Starbatty

EFDD

Tiziana Beghin

GUE/NGL

Anne-Marie Mineur, Helmut Scholz

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Budgetary Control (7.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Joachim Zeller

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Budgetary Control calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

A.  whereas in a situation of scarce resources, greater importance should be attached to the need to observe budgetary discipline and to use funds efficiently and effectively in order to ensure their utmost European added value;

B.  whereas the main objective of the 2018 draft budget will be to ensure that the Union budget is provided with the means it requires to fully deliver its reinforced contribution to economic, social and territorial cohesion, jobs (with full labour rights and protections), sustainable growth, targeted investment and solidarity across all Member States - large and small, struggling and thriving -, and to respond to continuing challenges and new developments, and their impact regarding delayed economic recovery and increasing inequalities, as well as immigration, humanitarian aid and security;

C.  whereas the overall increase of 8,1 % in payments compared to the 2017 budget is driven by the increase in the payments for European Structural and Investment Funds which should fully reach cruising speed in 2018;

D  whereas the vast majority of payments (94 %) relate to the funding of new programmes (for the period 2014-2020) whilst only 6 % concern the completion of old programmes (prior to 2014);

Programme Statements of operational expenditure accompanying the budget 2018

1.   Welcomes the programme statements of operational expenditures accompanying the draft budget 2018 COM (2017) 400 that provide information according to Article 38 of the Financial Regulation, encompassing both ex-ante estimations in terms of future outputs and results and the ex-post information on programmes’ performance;

2.  Points out that the statements correspond in part to the request made by the Parliament concerning the performance-based budget[1] but notes that those statements complement the usual activity-based budgeting method with some performance data;

3.   Notes that the current performance framework of the programmes reported in the programme statements includes more than 700 indicators of different type measuring the performance against 61 general and 228 specific objectives;

4.  Stresses that not all of those indicators measure Union budget performance directly: some provide either high level contextual information (e.g. "the Europe R&D target of 3% GDP" or "share of researchers in the EU active population") or process related information (e.g. "quality of project applications", "number of participants");

5.  Calls on the Commission to unify its reporting as much as possible in order to present a truthful picture of budget implementation and the added value achieved;

6.   Asks the Commission to provide for each programme a snapshot of available performance information indicating the distance to target for all informed specific indicators included in the basic act; this snapshot should represent the share of the indicator value with respect to the final target and measures progress towards achieving the targets;

7.  Takes note that the analysis of collected data per programme, including data for 2014, 2015 and 2016, confirmed that, at this stage of implementation, more than 80 % of the indicators are already informed or partially informed;

8.   Urges the Commission, for the sake of the simplification:

–  to align the performance framework used in the Article 318 TFEU evaluation report (Annual Management and Performance Report) and in its management tools (management plan and Directorate General annual activity reports) with the performance framework of the programme statements;

–  to take the programme statements framework as the basis for its evaluation of the implementation of the EU 2020 Strategy and the 10 Commission priorities for 2015-2019; and

–  to include updated data on results for all the indicators established by programme statements at least on an annual basis;

9.  Appreciates that the new approach of 'Budget Focused on Results' has for the first time been integrated into the internal budgetary preparation of the Commission in order to review the expenditure based on experience achieved so far and identify possible adjustments;

10.  Calls on the Commission to provide the European Parliament and the Council with the specific information used in the preparation of the 2018 draft budget on the areas where Union spending programmes bring positive results or, on the contrary, where implementation is slower than expected or the programme architecture is not adequate for the delivery of the expected results;

11.  Calls on the Committee on Budget of the European Parliament, in coordination with the sectorial committees of this Parliament, to promote a real culture of results in respect of the optimisation of the use of expenditure removing expenditures from programmes showing low performance only on the basis of a thorough analysis of the causes for underperformance; reiterates that tangible results cannot be achieved without sufficient resources;

12.  Underlines that Parliament, as discharge authority, is called upon to express views on the political objectives presented by the Commission in the draft budget and that it should check the cost/benefit, weighing up all the factors that influence the efficiency of projects;

Sectorial policies

13.  Stresses that for smaller farms particularly, direct payments under the common agricultural policy (CAP) may not fully play their role as a safety net mechanism for stabilising farm income, given that the current distribution of payments leads to 20 % of all farms in the Union receiving 80 % of all direct payments, and that this also indicates the need to take account of differences in the size of farms, which varies between Member States;

14.  Asks the Commission, in the context of CAP reform, to assess whether the CAP direct payment scheme is properly designed to stabilise farm income of all farms or whether a different Union-wide model of distribution of direct payments could result in a better achievement of the objectivesand further, asks the Commission to assess whether or not this new method of distribution should be made mandatory; notes that this assessment should have an impact on the budgetary proposals regarding the market measures;

15.  Takes note that the Commission considered that it is difficult if not impossible to provide an estimated cost paid for migrants/seeker country by country as the management of migratory flows comprises a wide range of activities[2]; would therefore like to be informed on how the Commission has been able to draft precise estimates regarding that policy area in context of performance-based budgeting and what criterion has hitherto been used to determine the allocation of AMIF funds in the various Member States;

Financial instruments

16.  Points out that the 2018 programme statements contain paragraphs referring to financial instruments financed by specific programme and notes that the Commission considers that such information does not constitute the official reporting on the financial instruments financed by the Union budget as provided for under Article140 (8) of the Financial Regulation as the Commission presents a separate annual report on financial instruments supported by the general budget according to Article140 (8) of the Financial Regulation and the latest report for 2015 was published on 24 October 2016; calls on the Commission to supply a full set of data on the allocation of financial instruments and on the results hitherto achieved from an economic, social and environmental point of view, also with regard to the expected and actual leverage effect;

17.  Urges once again the Commission to improve transparency in the use of financial instruments (FI), to regularly report on leverage, losses and risks and to present a cost-benefit analysis of FIs compared with more direct forms of project funding;

18.  Notes with concern that the EFSI implementation figures show that the majority of the investments are concentrated in the top five economies of the Union, which may further undermine the achievement of the Union's strategic objectives for greater cohesion;

19.  Is concerned that trust funds and other facilities using substantial Union budget contributions remain without proper surveillance by and accountability to the Parliament and insists on stronger accountability of these instruments;

Brexit

20.  Calls on the Commission to present a detailed estimate, including an explanation of the method of calculation, of the costs generated by the decision of the UK Government to leave the European Union; calls further for the Commission to publish as soon as possible an outline of how it plans to cope with the combination of reduced budget income after Brexit and increased spending on items such as security and migration.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

4.9.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

19

1

2

Members present for the final vote

Jonathan Arnott, Inés Ayala Sender, Zigmantas Balčytis, Dennis de Jong, Tamás Deutsch, Martina Dlabajová, Raffaele Fitto, Luke Ming Flanagan, Ingeborg Gräßle, Cătălin Sorin Ivan, Jean-François Jalkh, Arndt Kohn, Claudia Schmidt, Bart Staes, Hannu Takkula, Indrek Tarand, Marco Valli, Derek Vaughan, Joachim Zeller

Substitutes present for the final vote

Caterina Chinnici, Brian Hayes, Julia Pitera

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

19

+

ALDE

ECR

GUE/NGL

PPE

S&D

VERTS/ALE

Martina Dlabajová, Hannu Takkula

Raffaele Fitto

Luke Ming Flanagan, Dennis de Jong

Tamás Deutsch, Ingeborg Gräßle, Brian Hayes, Julia Pitera, Claudia Schmidt, Joachim Zeller

Inés Ayala Sender, Zigmantas Balčytis, Caterina Chinnici, Cătălin Sorin Ivan, Arndt Kohn, Derek Vaughan

Bart Staes, Indrek Tarand

1

-

ENF

Jean-François Jalkh

2

0

EFDD

Jonathan Arnott, Marco Valli

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

  • [1]   In its report on the Integrated Internal Control adopted on 3 June 2013 the Parliament calls for the establishment of a performance-based public budgeting model in which each budget line is accompanied by objectives and outputs to be measured by performance indicators.
  • [2]    Reply to written question 23- CONT hearing of Commissioner AVRAMAPOLOS of 29 November 2016

OPINION of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (7.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Markus Ferber

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Calls for the Union budget for 2018 to contribute to the fulfilment of the priorities outlined in the European Semester, specifically re-launching future-oriented investment, fostering convergence, pursuing socially balanced sustainable and growth-oriented structural reforms to increase competitiveness and conducting responsible fiscal policies; underlines that synergies between the budget of the Union and the budget of a Member State are required in order to achieve the European Semester’s priorities;

2.  Underlines the crucial importance of the budget line on "Coordination and surveillance of, and communication on, the economic and monetary union, including the euro" as a technical and communication means for better coordination of economic policies, including in the context of the European Semester, for its contribution to Treaty-based surveillance obligations and critical data production, and for its support actions for financial assistance, thus contributing to financial stability within and outside the Union;

3.  Points out the need to support the current debate on the future of the EMU by financing the necessary tools to ensure a broad debate with citizens and stakeholders;

4.  Stresses the need to introduce a standard set of data for recording, reporting and monitoring execution of the national budgets and the Union budget, and their contribution to the achievement of the goals set out in the Annual Growth Survey and the country-specific recommendations (CSRs);

5.  Welcomes the inclusion of adequate resources provided for in the 2018 budget to support the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs); underlines that the role of the ESAs is essential in fostering the consistent application of Union law and better coordination between national authorities, and in ensuring financial stability, better integrated financial markets and consumer protection and supervisory convergence; emphasises that in the interest of a prudent use of their budgets, the ESAs must stick to the tasks and to the mandate assigned to them by the European legislator;

6.  Believes that the budget of the ESAs still has rationalisation potential; stresses, therefore, that any potential increases in the means of the ESAs should be accompanied by adequate rationalisation measures;

7.  Suggests that, as the workload of the ESAs is increasingly shifting from legislative tasks to supervisory convergence and enforcement, the budget and manpower of the ESAs should be re-allocated internally; emphasises that all three agencies will have to assign adequate resources to analyse the implications of Brexit for the future of the Union’s financial markets;

8.  Emphasises that the ESAs should ensure that the IT-systems used are efficient, user-friendly, secure and cost-effective; therefore, in order to make further efficiency gains, calls for the consideration of a common administrative organisation, consisting of a common IT department, and a common HR department;

9.  Reiterates that the financing of the ESAs should be reviewed; calls on the Commission to come forward with a proposal in the framework of the upcoming ESA review examining appropriately and proportionately calibrated fees for market participants partly replacing the contributions of national competent authorities without compromising the ESAs independence; encourages the Commission to make a proposal for the ESA review shortly;

10.  Underlines that the costs of moving the European Banking Authority (EBA) from London should be borne by the United Kingdom; points out, however, that the Commission should have prepared the necessary financial allocations in the eventuality that it would have to bear the implied costs;

11.  Considers that efficiency should be a critical criterion in the decision-making process on EBA relocation; in the context of the upcoming ESA review, calls on the Commission to explore all options including the structural set-up of the ESAs to realise such efficiency gains;

12.  Points out that a significant part of each of the respective budgets of the ESAs is spent on renting office spaces; notes that rent prices vary considerably between ESAs; notes that EIOPA's rent is EUR 29/m² per month while ESMA's rent is EUR 52,5/m² per month; points out that the cost of renting office space should be given careful consideration when deciding about the relocation of EBA;

13.  Stresses that in the field of digitalisation of financial services, particularly with regard to distributed ledger technology (DLT), a further build-up of technical expertise is needed to be better able to react to potential challenges and therefore expressly supports continued funding for the Horizontal Task Force Distributed Ledger Technology; further calls for the development of use cases for governmental application to harness the innovative potential of the technology;

14.  Points out the need to ensure the adequate resources to support the Union action to fight tax fraud, tax evasion and aggressive tax planning, notably through a preparatory action on capacity building, programmatic development and communication in the context of the fight against tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax fraud, following the pilot project launched in 2016;

15.  Is of the opinion that increased resources should be allocated in the framework of the 2018 Union budget in order to conduct a comprehensive and unbiased assessment of the risk posed by third countries in terms of their strategic deficiencies in the area of anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing, based on criteria defined in Article 9 of Directive (EU) 2015/849 and establish a list of 'high-risk' jurisdictions;

16.  Welcomes the readiness of Eurostat to improve the user-friendliness of its online data and deems therefore that the budgetary reserve adopted last year does not need to be repeated; calls on Eurostat to implement in that perspective the requirements provided for in the 2018-2020 extension of the European Statistical Programme;

17.  Calls on the Commission to continue the reform of the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), in particular with regard to its task and responsibilities, thereby also strengthening the Union's influence in international accounting standard-setting;

18.  Stresses the importance of supporting the Commission’s completion of its Capital Markets Union initiative, as well as ensuring the implementation of the Consumer Financial Services Action Plan, thereby benefiting consumers, businesses and investors.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

4.9.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

37

9

4

Members present for the final vote

Gerolf Annemans, Burkhard Balz, Pervenche Berès, Udo Bullmann, Esther de Lange, Markus Ferber, Jonás Fernández, Neena Gill, Roberto Gualtieri, Brian Hayes, Gunnar Hökmark, Danuta Maria Hübner, Cătălin Sorin Ivan, Petr Ježek, Othmar Karas, Wajid Khan, Philippe Lamberts, Werner Langen, Bernd Lucke, Olle Ludvigsson, Fulvio Martusciello, Marisa Matias, Gabriel Mato, Costas Mavrides, Bernard Monot, Luděk Niedermayer, Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner, Anne Sander, Alfred Sant, Molly Scott Cato, Pedro Silva Pereira, Peter Simon, Kay Swinburne, Paul Tang, Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, Marco Valli, Jakob von Weizsäcker, Marco Zanni

Substitutes present for the final vote

Enrique Calvet Chambon, Matt Carthy, Manuel dos Santos, Ashley Fox, Eva Joly, Paloma López Bermejo, Thomas Mann, Luigi Morgano, Lieve Wierinck

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Margot Parker, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

37

+

ALDE

Enrique Calvet Chambon, Petr Ježek, Ramon Tremosa i Balcells, Lieve Wierinck

ECR

Bernd Lucke, Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner

PPE

Burkhard Balz, Markus Ferber, Brian Hayes, Gunnar Hökmark, Danuta Maria Hübner, Othmar Karas, Werner Langen, Thomas Mann, Fulvio Martusciello, Gabriel Mato, Luděk Niedermayer, Anne Sander, Esther de Lange, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska

S&D

Pervenche Berès, Udo Bullmann, Jonás Fernández, Roberto Gualtieri, Cătălin Sorin Ivan, Olle Ludvigsson, Costas Mavrides, Luigi Morgano, Alfred Sant, Pedro Silva Pereira, Peter Simon, Paul Tang, Manuel dos Santos, Jakob von Weizsäcker

Verts/ALE

Eva Joly, Philippe Lamberts, Molly Scott Cato

9

-

ECR

Ashley Fox

EFDD

Margot Parker

ENF

Gerolf Annemans, Bernard Monot, Marco Zanni

GUE/NGL

Matt Carthy, Paloma López Bermejo, Marisa Matias, Dimitrios Papadimoulis

4

0

ECR

Kay Swinburne

EFDD

Marco Valli

S&D

Neena Gill, Wajid Khan

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (31.8.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Deirdre Clune

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Recalls that sustainable growth and investment are key factors for the creation of decent jobs leading to quality employment and for increasing prosperity for all; recalls that it is necessary to direct the structural and investment funds more effectively towards promoting smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, reducing inequalities and boosting upward social and territorial convergence; in that context, stresses that the EU budget should contribute financially towards achieving the Europe 2020 targets in the social and employment area;

2.  Notes the overall year-on-year increase proposed by the Commission in the appropriations of heading 1 – Smart and inclusive growth (+2,5 % in commitment appropriations and +18,3 % in payment appropriations); notes further the proportionally higher increases in heading 1b – Economic, social and territorial cohesion (+2,4 % in commitment appropriations and + 25,7 % in payment appropriations);

3.  Stresses that those additional resources must not violate the principle of subsidiarity, crowd out private investments or replace national measures;

4.  Is concerned about the proposed decrease of 8,85 % in the commitment appropriations of the "Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion" chapter;

5.  Is concerned about all the cuts in the “Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion”made by the European Council; stresses, in that respect, that changes that reduce the budgetary programming for the employment, social affairs and inclusion lines must be rejected and that a proper balance between commitment and payment appropriations must be found in order to allow these policies to reach their full potential;

6.  Emphasises that the 2018 budget has to play a key role in enhancing the Union’s contribution to reducing inequalities and creating growth and jobs in the Union, with a strong focus on combatting unemployment among those furthest away from the labour market and on combatting poverty, with a particular focus on child poverty; therefore reiterates its call for full implementation of the budget lines dedicated to employment and social affairs;

7.  Recalls that there are 2 million social economy enterprises in Europe, which employ 14,5 million people and aim to have a social, societal or environmental impact for the general interest; points out that they contribute to Union employment, social cohesion, regional and rural development, environmental protection, consumer protection, agriculture, third-country development, and social security policies; calls on the Commission to establish an adequately financed European Action Plan, which will promote the social economy enterprises in the Union and boost social innovation; recalls that social enterprises are struggling to find the right funding opportunities due to the lack of understanding of their functioning and their small size; stresses the importance of adequate funding via the programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, the European Social Fund (ESF) and the European Regional Development Fund;

8.  Recalls that youth unemployment rates remain unacceptably high in the Union and that the situation of unemployed young people, especially persons who are not in education, employment, or training (NEETS), is particularly worrying; emphasises that, in order to address this issue, it is of high importance to ensure the proper and timely funding of the Youth Guarantee schemes through the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) and the ESF; highlights, in that context, the need for those instruments to be adequately funded in a timely manner, and stresses, in particular, the importance of the agreed fresh funding of EUR 500 million for the YEI for 2017; also notes with concern the Court of Auditors’[1]statement that it is not possible to address the entire NEET population using the resources available from the EU budget alone;

9.  Recalls, in particular, the importance of ensuring funding of at least EUR 700 million for the YEI for the period 2018 to 2020, as agreed within the MFF mid-term revision, to be split between 2018, 2019 and 2020 into three equal instalments of EUR 233,33 million as is reflected in the Draft Budget 2018; calls also for the allocation of sufficient payment appropriations to ensure the proper implementation of the YEI;

10.  Recalls that EURES is an important tool by which, simultaneously, to increase labour mobility and to tackle unemployment and shortage of skilled workers in the Union; notes, however, that the level of awareness of EURES remains very low; emphasises that a proper and timely funding through EaSI is important in order to finance awareness campaigns in the Union;

11.  Stresses the importance of adequate funding and good budgetary management of the programmes within the 2014 to 2020 Multiannual Financial Framework that aim to address unemployment, poverty and social exclusion, such as the ESF, including the YEI, the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF), the different axes of the Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) and the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD);

12.  Reiterates, in particular, its call for adequate commitment and especially payment appropriations to be ensured in the 2018 Budget for the ESF given that it is entering a period of intense implementation and that payment requests by Member States will increase;

13.  Welcomes the increases proposed for EGF (+2 % year-on-year in commitment appropriations of the maximum envelope available for this fund) and FEAD (+1,9 % in commitment appropriations); is concerned, however, with the decrease in the payment appropriations proposed for FEAD (-9,07 %) in addition to a reduction of its support expenditure;

14.  States that social dialogue is a key instrument for assuring sustainable growth, improving working conditions, achieving upward convergence and balancing competitiveness and fairness; regrets therefore the cuts made by the European Council on the lines related to industrial relations and social dialogue and information, consultation and participation of representatives of undertakings;

15.  Notes that of the EUR 72,8 million funding proposed by the Commission for the European Solidarity Corps (appropriations are to be entered into the reserve until such time as the basic act is adopted by the legislator), EUR 2,5 million will be provided in 2018 by the Progress axis of the EaSi and EUR 11,1 million will be redeployed from the ESF and therefore taken away from other employment, social affairs and inclusion priorities; believes that ESC should, instead, be financed by the use of all financial means available under the existing MFF Regulation;

16.  Recalls that Parliament, as co-legislator for EU programmes and one of the two arms of the budgetary authority, is opposed to reallocating funds from priority programmes;

17.  Welcomes the fact that EUR 18,4 million set aside for the Corps in 2018 is fresh money; insists, however, that the funding of the ESC must not put further pressure and have a negative impact on existing programmes aimed at employment, social inclusion, education and active citizenship (such as the Europe for Citizens and Erasmus+ programmes, the Employment and Social Innovation programme, and the projects financed from the ESF), and will not distort the functioning of existing successful programmes or measures ; expresses its concern, therefore, that resources are being shifted from important programs such as the ESF, Erasmus and Life.

18.  Rejects the reduction of funding for the EU-OSHA agency as proposed by the Council and reiterates the importance of rejecting that proposed reduction;

19.  Calls for the staff reduction target of EUROFOUND for 2018 to be postponed on an exceptional basis;

20.  Reiterates that pilot projects (PPs) and preparatory actions (PAs) are very valuable tools to initiate new activities and policies in the fields of employment and social inclusion and that several ideas of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have been implemented successfully in the past as pilot projects or preparatory actions; encourages the full use of the margins available under each heading; calls for Parliament to be given regular, detailed updates on the various stages in the implementation of pilot projects and preparatory actions by the Commission; calls on the Commission, in the implementation of the PPs and PAs, to respect their content as agreed and approved by Parliament and the Council;

21.  Notes that five pilot projects received either an 'A' or a 'B' rating and encourages the budgetary authority to include them in the 2018 budget and the Commission to implement these without delay;

22.  Recalls the growing prevalence of chronic and autoimmune diseases in the Union pose serious threats to the Union’s health care systems and labour market; emphasises the importance of funding research as well as the development of Union action plans on prevention and early diagnosis of chronic and autoimmune diseases as well as life-time healthy ageing starting from childhood onward;

23.  Recalls that the number of care-dependent people is rising; 80 % of all care activities are done by informal carers, mostly women, who look after their relatives; highlights that many of them reduce or even leave their professional job due to their high amount of responsibilities as carers; stresses that in order to support informal carers, continued funding of the European network of carers (EUROCARERS) and the exchange of best-practice examples across the Member States is necessary.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

30.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

41

8

2

Members present for the final vote

Laura Agea, Tiziana Beghin, Brando Benifei, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, Enrique Calvet Chambon, David Casa, Ole Christensen, Martina Dlabajová, Lampros Fountoulis, Elena Gentile, Arne Gericke, Czesław Hoc, Agnes Jongerius, Rina Ronja Kari, Jan Keller, Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, Jérôme Lavrilleux, Patrick Le Hyaric, Jeroen Lenaers, Verónica Lope Fontagné, Javi López, Thomas Mann, Dominique Martin, Anthea McIntyre, Joëlle Mélin, Elisabeth Morin-Chartier, Emilian Pavel, Georgi Pirinski, Marek Plura, Terry Reintke, Robert Rochefort, Claude Rolin, Sven Schulze, Siôn Simon, Romana Tomc, Yana Toom, Ulrike Trebesius, Marita Ulvskog, Renate Weber, Tatjana Ždanoka, Jana Žitňanská

Substitutes present for the final vote

Georges Bach, Deirdre Clune, Paloma López Bermejo, Edouard Martin, Anne Sander, Joachim Schuster, Neoklis Sylikiotis, Monika Vana, Theodoros Zagorakis, Flavio Zanonato

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

41

+

ALDE

GUE/NGL

PPE

 

S&D

 

VERTS/ALE

Enrique Calvet Chambon, Martina Dlabajová, Robert Rochefort, Yana Toom, Renate Weber

Rina Ronja Kari, Patrick Le Hyaric, Paloma López Bermejo, Neoklis Sylikiotis

Georges Bach, David Casa, Deirdre Clune, Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, Jérôme Lavrilleux, Jeroen Lenaers, Verónica Lope Fontagné, Thomas Mann, Elisabeth Morin-Chartier, Marek Plura, Claude Rolin, Anne Sander, Sven Schulze, Romana Tomc, Theodoros Zagorakis

Brando Benifei, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, Ole Christensen, Elena Gentile, Agnes Jongerius, Jan Keller, Javi López, Edouard Martin, Emilian Pavel, Georgi Pirinski, Joachim Schuster, Siôn Simon, Marita Ulvskog, Flavio Zanonato

Terry Reintke, Monika Vana, Tatjana Ždanoka

8

-

ECR

ENF

NI

Arne Gericke, Czesław Hoc, Anthea McIntyre, Ulrike Trebesius, Jana Žitňanská

Dominique Martin, Joëlle Mélin

Lampros Fountoulis

2

0

EFDD

Laura Agea, Tiziana Beghin

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

  • [1]  http://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/NewsItem.aspx?nid=8265

OPINION of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (31.8.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Adina-Ioana Vălean

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Underlines that 19,5 % of the total commitments in the draft budget for 2018 (2018 DB) are climate-related and that the Union budget trend would deliver only 18,8 % for the MFF period; stresses that every effort should be made to reach the 20 % target;

2.  Recalls that according to the European Court of Auditors (ECA) there is a serious risk that the 20 % climate target in the Union Budget will not be achieved, whilst according to Commission figures, the share of funding dedicated to climate action has averaged only 17,6 % over the period 2014 to 2016; shares ECA's view that the rate of climate funding would need to be increased to an average of 22 % across the remaining years of the current programming period, i.e. for 2017 to 2020, in order to reach the overall target of 20 % by the end of 2020; recalls that in March 2017, ECOFIN also called on Member States to spend a higher amount of the Union budget during the remaining current MFF period on climate financing, given the additional commitments entered into at the COP 21 in Paris;

3.  Reiterates that the achievement of goals laid out in the Europe 2020 strategy is dependent on climate and resource efficiency mainstreaming throughout all Union policies; the Union budget must also support the objectives of the Paris Agreement;

4.  Believes that Union-funded projects, including EFSI, should not have a negative impact on the transition to a circular, low-carbon economy; a comprehensive screening of the Union budget is therefore urgently needed in order to identify environmentally harmful spending and to develop, and commit to, a strategy to phase out such lending;

5.  Notes that 8,2 % of total commitments are related to reversing the decline in biodiversity; calls for sufficient resources to be allocated to the protection of biodiversity;

6.  Notes the increase of EUR 29,1 million in commitments for LIFE (+5,9 %); regrets that LIFE represents only 0,3 % of the 2018 DB;

7.  Is concerned that the Commission intends to reallocate EUR 2 million of the funds available under the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and EUR 1,5 million of the funds available under the LIFE programme to the European Solidarity Corps; calls on the Commission to ensure that the reallocation of funds from the Union Civil Protection Mechanism and the LIFE programme to the European Solidarity Corps does not in any way diminish the effective functioning of those programmes, nor hamper or delay the various actions and initiatives foreseen in relation to civil protection and the environment, biodiversity protection and climate adaptation;

8.  Expresses concerns at the 13,1 % reduction in LIFE payments; warns of the problems that could result from a lack of payments;

9.  Takes note of the proposed EUR 66,4 million in commitments (+2,9 %) and EUR 55,9 million in payments (-3,1 %) for health; regrets that this is only 0,04 % of the 2018 DB and 1,5 % of heading 3 (in commitments);

10.  Takes note of the proposed EUR 286,7 million in commitments (+11,9 %) and EUR 248,4 million in payments (+5,9 %) for food and feed; regrets that this is only 0,18 % of the 2018 DB and 7% of heading 3 (in commitments);

11.  Notes the increase in the commitments for the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (EUR 33,2 million, +7,2 %), which is a cornerstone of Union solidarity;

12.  Strongly disapproves of staff reductions in EEA (-3 posts), ECHA (-2), ECDC (-2), EFSA (-4) and EMA (-5), which, given that the tasks and duties of those agencies are growing, will almost inevitably negatively impact their work; demands that they should receive adequate human and financial resources; furthermore, is concerned that in the case of fee-funded agencies, like EMA, the staff cuts imposed in recent years have meant a reduction in staff working on tasks that are actually funded by applicants' fees and not by the Union budget; such cuts have been carried out without taking into consideration either the additional workload created by increasing numbers of applications, or the corresponding increase in income from fees paid by applicants for the services provided which could have allowed staff increases while avoiding any impact on the Union budget;

13.  Recalls in particular that EEA helps the Union to make informed decisions about improving the environment, integrating environmental considerations into economic policies and moving towards sustainability, and that in the context of the 2030 Union climate and energy policy, the Commission has proposed new work for EEA on the Governance of the Energy Union, without any corresponding increase in the establishment table;

14.  Notes in particular that EMA will be facing an increased workload and further budgetary needs in 2018 as a consequence of the decision of the UK to withdraw from the Union; calls on the Commission to make available additional staff and budget resources in 2018 so as to ensure that this agency can both continue to carry out its tasks effectively and launch all required activities in preparation for its relocation in 2019; proposes therefore that EMA, in the spirit of sound financial management, be authorised to maintain a budgetary reserve to respond to unforeseen costs that may be incurred in 2018 or beyond, such as a result of unfavourable exchange rate fluctuations;

15.  Calls on the Commission to swiftly implement pilot projects and preparatory actions (PP-PAs) and calls on the Commission for continued support for ongoing and new pilot projects;

16.  Recalls that PP-PAs should receive adequate funding throughout their life cycle, so that they can reach their full potential.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

31.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

51

11

1

Members present for the final vote

Marco Affronte, Pilar Ayuso, Zoltán Balczó, Catherine Bearder, Ivo Belet, Simona Bonafè, Paul Brannen, Nessa Childers, Birgit Collin-Langen, Mireille D’Ornano, Miriam Dalli, Seb Dance, Angélique Delahaye, Mark Demesmaeker, Stefan Eck, Bas Eickhout, Karl-Heinz Florenz, Francesc Gambús, Elisabetta Gardini, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, Arne Gericke, Jens Gieseke, Julie Girling, Françoise Grossetête, Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Jean-François Jalkh, Benedek Jávor, Karin Kadenbach, Kateřina Konečná, Urszula Krupa, Jo Leinen, Peter Liese, Susanne Melior, Massimo Paolucci, Gilles Pargneaux, Piernicola Pedicini, Bolesław G. Piecha, Frédérique Ries, Davor Škrlec, Claudiu Ciprian Tănăsescu, Ivica Tolić, Estefanía Torres Martínez, Damiano Zoffoli

Substitutes present for the final vote

Nicola Caputo, Albert Deß, Jørn Dohrmann, Herbert Dorfmann, Christofer Fjellner, Luke Ming Flanagan, Stefano Maullu, Gesine Meissner, Joëlle Mélin, James Nicholson, Younous Omarjee, Marijana Petir, Stanislav Polčák, Christel Schaldemose, Tibor Szanyi, Keith Taylor, Tiemo Wölken, Carlos Zorrinho

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Jonathan Bullock, Olle Ludvigsson

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

51

+

ALDE

Catherine Bearder, Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Gesine Meissner, Frédérique Ries

GUE/NGL

Stefan Eck, Luke Ming Flanagan, Kateřina Konečná, Younous Omarjee, Estefanía Torres Martínez

NI

Zoltán Balczó

PPE

Pilar Ayuso, Ivo Belet, Birgit Collin-Langen, Angélique Delahaye, Albert Deß, Herbert Dorfmann, Christofer Fjellner, Karl-Heinz Florenz, Francesc Gambús, Elisabetta Gardini, Jens Gieseke, Françoise Grossetête, Peter Liese, Stefano Maullu, Marijana Petir, Stanislav Polčák, Ivica Tolić

S&D

Simona Bonafè, Paul Brannen, Nicola Caputo, Nessa Childers, Miriam Dalli, Seb Dance, Karin Kadenbach, Jo Leinen, Olle Ludvigsson, Susanne Melior, Massimo Paolucci, Gilles Pargneaux, Christel Schaldemose, Tibor Szanyi, Claudiu Ciprian Tănăsescu, Tiemo Wölken, Damiano Zoffoli, Carlos Zorrinho

VERTS/ALE

Marco Affronte, Bas Eickhout, Benedek Jávor, Davor Škrlec, Keith Taylor

11

-

ECR

Mark Demesmaeker, Jørn Dohrmann, Arne Gericke, Julie Girling, Urszula Krupa, James Nicholson, Bolesław G. Piecha

EFDD

Jonathan Bullock

ENF

Mireille D'Ornano, Jean-François Jalkh, Joëlle Mélin

1

0

EFDD

Piernicola Pedicini

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (03.10.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Jerzy Buzek

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Rejects Council cuts of 4,5 % in commitment appropriations and 1,4 % in payment appropriations in budget lines related to industry, research and energy under Heading 1a of the Union budget 2018 compared to the Commission’s proposal; notes the increase of 5,5 % in commitment appropriations and 5,3 % in payment appropriations in budget lines related to industry, research and energy under Heading 1a of the Union budget 2018 compared to 2017; welcomes the focus of the 2018 budget on the success of young generations and on the creation of stable and high-quality jobs put forward by the Commission; notes the new increased levels of support for young researchers proposed by the Commission; in this context disapproves Council cuts in the funding of the entrepreneurship programmes provided by the EIT;

2.  Deeply regrets the significant Council cuts in commitment appropriations of EUR 0,5 billion and of EUR 120 million in payment appropriations in the Common Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation with an overwhelmingly negative impact on Horizon 2020; notes that such cuts are proposed despite the current lack of investments in research and development of approximately EUR 150 billion per year; therefore intends to completely reverse the cuts proposed by the Council; is concerned that insufficient funding for Horizon 2020 has resulted in a low success rate for applications; calls on the Commission to respect the breakdown of the Horizon 2020 budget as described in Annex II to Regulation (EU) 1291/2013;

3.  Calls for the restoration of the original annual profile of the budget lines for Horizon 2020 and CEF that were cut for the provisioning of the EFSI Guarantee Fund, including by the use of all financial means available under the existing MFF Regulation; recalls that during the EFSI negotiations, Parliament called for the reduction of the negative impact on those two programmes insofar as possible; is concerned that the proposed extension of EFSI may again weaken Horizon 2020 and CEF;

4.  Recalls that the goals of the Energy Union and the European climate goals are among the current main legislative priorities; calls on the Commission to provide the necessary financial resources for investments in that field; considers that necessary funds should be safeguarded for CEF-Energy in order to achieve the deepening of an integrated Union energy market and is concerned by the cuts proposed by the Council in commitments and payments appropriations of CEF-Energy;

5.  Stresses that the goals of the Digital Single Market need to be achieved to promote digital inclusion for Union economy, public sector and Union citizens and that legislative initiatives such as WIFI4EU are crucial in order to achieve those goals; calls on the Commission to provide sufficient funding for related budget lines and to keep its investment commitment for WIFI4EU between 2017 and 2020;

6.  Insists that the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) be provided with sufficient financial resources and staff, to be able to cope with the extension of their mandate; further notes that the financial resources and the number of additional posts for European GNSS Agency, tasked to fulfil its mandate and to support the proper and efficient future management of Galileo, as well as for the European Agency for Network and Information Security and European Institute for Innovation and Technology remain insufficient to fulfil the new tasks conferred to them by the Union’s legislation;

7.  Is aware of the high importance of the budget lines for Societal Challenges, and more specifically of the budget line for improving lifelong health and wellbeing to increase the standard of living in the Union; encourages the Commission to maintain sufficient funding for such purposes and deplores the proposed Council cuts;

8.  Underlines that SMEs are an essential part of the Union economy as they provide a high number of jobs in the Union and sees the need to create an SME-friendly business environment, as well as to support SME clusters and networks; welcomes the increase in funds for the SME instrument and the continuation of EFSI in the Commission proposal; notes however with deep concern the Commission’s cuts to COSME and the Council cuts to the SME instrument send a contradictory signal to European businesses;

9.  Takes note of the preparatory action for defence; stresses however that such an activity should be endowed with fresh resources given its significant impact on the Union budget; underlines that the research window needs additional funding under the post-2020 MFF; is concerned about the frontloading in CEF-Energy to make resources available in 2019-2020 for, for example, EU defence;

10.  Takes note of the increase for nuclear decommissioning assistance programmes; recognises the need for financial assistance for decommissioning, but regrets delays in the programmes; calls on the Commission to make well-analysed and reasonable increases, considering such delays;

11.  Stresses that the Union's failure to deliver on its legal and political commitments on payment appropriations would seriously harm its reliability and have a serious negative impact on trust in the Union institutions’ ability to fulfil their role.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

2.10.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

46

7

7

Members present for the final vote

Nikolay Barekov, Nicolas Bay, Bendt Bendtsen, Xabier Benito Ziluaga, José Blanco López, David Borrelli, Jonathan Bullock, Cristian-Silviu Buşoi, Edward Czesak, Jakop Dalunde, Pilar del Castillo Vera, Fredrick Federley, Adam Gierek, Theresa Griffin, Rebecca Harms, Hans-Olaf Henkel, Kaja Kallas, Barbara Kappel, Krišjānis Kariņš, Seán Kelly, Jaromír Kohlíček, Peter Kouroumbashev, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, Christelle Lechevalier, Janusz Lewandowski, Paloma López Bermejo, Edouard Martin, Angelika Mlinar, Csaba Molnár, Nadine Morano, Dan Nica, Aldo Patriciello, Miroslav Poche, Michel Reimon, Massimiliano Salini, Algirdas Saudargas, Sven Schulze, Neoklis Sylikiotis, Dario Tamburrano, Patrizia Toia, Evžen Tošenovský, Claude Turmes, Vladimir Urutchev, Kathleen Van Brempt, Henna Virkkunen, Martina Werner, Lieve Wierinck, Anna Záborská, Carlos Zorrinho

Substitutes present for the final vote

Pilar Ayuso, Pervenche Berès, Michał Boni, Jens Geier, Françoise Grossetête, Werner Langen, Olle Ludvigsson, Răzvan Popa, Dennis Radtke

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Claudia Schmidt

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

46

+

ALDE

Angelika Mlinar, Fredrick Federley, Kaja Kallas, Lieve Wierinck

ECR

Edward Czesak, Evžen Tošenovský, Hans-Olaf Henkel, Nikolay Barekov, Zdzisław Krasnodębski

PPE

Aldo Patriciello, Algirdas Saudargas, Anna Záborská, Bendt Bendtsen, Claudia Schmidt, Cristian-Silviu Buşoi, Dennis Radtke, Françoise Grossetête, Henna Virkkunen, Janusz Lewandowski, Krišjānis Kariņš, Michał Boni, Massimiliano Salini, Nadine Morano, Pilar Ayuso, Pilar del Castillo Vera, Seán Kelly, Sven Schulze, Vladimir Urutchev, Werner Langen

S&D

Adam Gierek, Carlos Zorrinho, Csaba Molnár, Dan Nica, David Martin, Jens Geier, José Blanco López, Kathleen Van Brempt, Martina Werner, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, Miroslav Poche, Olle Ludvigsson, Patrizia Toia, Pervenche Berès, Peter Kouroumbashev, Răzvan Popa, Theresa Griffin

7

-

EFDD

Jonathan Bullock

ENF

Christelle Lechevalier, Nicolas Bay

Verts/ALE

Claude Turmes, Jakop Dalunde, Michel Reimon, Rebecca Harms

7

0

EFDD

Dario Tamburrano, David Borrelli

ENF

Barbara Kappel

GUE/NGL

Jaromír Kohlíček, Neoklis Sylikiotis, Paloma López Bermejo, Xabier Benito Ziluaga

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (20.7.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Daniel Dalton

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Notes that the responsibility of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) in the budget procedure covers budget lines in titles 2 (Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs), 14 (Taxation and customs union) and 33 (Justice and Consumers);

2.  Considers that a well-functioning highly integrated and unified internal market with a fair environment for consumers and SMEs is a cornerstone for stronger competitiveness of the Union and stresses the need to take into account the transformation to the digital era with an adequate budgetary allocation, in particular for SMEs;

3.  Is convinced that consumer policy is one of the main horizontal priorities for the Union and that the budget for that policy area should reflect this; asks the Commission to do its utmost to increase education and awareness on consumer policy, as well as on product safety and market surveillance, in particular in the Digital Single Market and to mainstream consumer interests across all Union policies;

4.  Welcomes the fact that, in the 2018 budgetary procedure, IMCO's main priorities in areas such as the customs union, consumer protection, competitiveness and internal market for goods and services have been taken into account with adequate budgetary allocations in terms of commitment appropriations;

5.  Observes that the payment appropriations for IMCO’s budget lines do diminish by 15 % in general terms and expects that this diminution responds only to an adequate planning of the schedule of payments of ongoing contracts by the Commission and that the existing appropriations will suffice to effect all the payments in 2018;

6.  Welcomes appropriations for the competitiveness of enterprises and SMEs as it is one of the priorities to support entrepreneurship and boost sustainable growth and the creation of jobs; stresses the necessity of efficient financing for innovation, scale-up, internationalisation and access to third countries' markets in order to increase the international competitiveness of Union enterprises;

7.  Welcomes the increase in commitment appropriations concerning the budget line 02 02 01 ‘Promoting entrepreneurship and improving the competitiveness and access to markets of Union enterprises’ but is nevertheless concerned at the reduction in payment appropriations in that budget line since SMEs still encounter problems in those areas of the real economy; stresses that sufficient financial support for microenterprises, entrepreneurs and SMEs should be the key priority for the Union; emphasises that securing good access to finance is essential for keeping SMEs competitive and for helping them to overcome challenges related to access to the internal market as well as to the global market;

8.  Welcomes the allocation of funds for the modernisation of the customs union, which supports the implementation of the Union Customs Code (Code) and the development of the electronic customs systems as this constitutes one of the priority areas for a better functioning of the internal market; emphasises that the full and uniform implementation of the Code is essential to protect citizens and the financial interests of the Union and calls on the Commission and the Member States to meet the deadline of 31 December 2020 for the transitional measures laid down in Article 278 of the Code to ensure a full implementation of the Code;

9.  Welcomes the allocations for the budget line 33 04 01 ‘Safeguarding consumers’ interest and improving their safety and information’ as consumer policy is one of the main policies of the Union;

10.  Asks for the financing of all pilot projects and in particular, new pilot projects entitled ‘Digital skills for EU start-ups’ to contribute to the innovation and cross-border trade, and “Assessing alleged differences in the quality of products sold on the Single Market” which aims to respond to the consumers’ concerns about possible differences in the quality of products with the same brand and packaging in the internal market and also asks for the extension of the PP-‘Algorithm Awareness Building Initiative’ to deliver on a series of targeted in-depth prototyping of approaches and policy solutions fit for addressing the complexity of the challenges raised by algorithmic decision-making in the near- and longer-term.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

13.7.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

30

4

0

Members present for the final vote

Carlos Coelho, Daniel Dalton, Nicola Danti, Pascal Durand, Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz, Evelyne Gebhardt, Maria Grapini, Sergio Gutiérrez Prieto, Robert Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Liisa Jaakonsaari, Morten Løkkegaard, Marlene Mizzi, Virginie Rozière, Christel Schaldemose, Olga Sehnalová, Jasenko Selimovic, Ivan Štefanec, Catherine Stihler, Mylène Troszczynski, Anneleen Van Bossuyt, Marco Zullo

Substitutes present for the final vote

Jan Philipp Albrecht, Birgit Collin-Langen, Edward Czesak, Dariusz Rosati, Adam Szejnfeld, Marc Tarabella

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Andrea Bocskor, David Coburn, Jan Huitema, Seán Kelly, Andrey Kovatchev, Bogdan Brunon Wenta, Marco Zanni

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

30

+

ALDE

Jan Huitema, Morten Løkkegaard, Jasenko Selimovic

ECR

Edward Czesak, Daniel Dalton, Anneleen Van Bossuyt

EFDD

Marco Zullo

PPE

Andrea Bocskor, Carlos Coelho, Birgit Collin-Langen, Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz, Seán Kelly, Andrey Kovatchev, Dariusz Rosati, Ivan Štefanec, Adam Szejnfeld, Bogdan Brunon Wenta

S&D

Nicola Danti, Evelyne Gebhardt, Maria Grapini, Sergio Gutiérrez Prieto, Liisa Jaakonsaari, Marlene Mizzi, Virginie Rozière, Christel Schaldemose, Olga Sehnalová, Catherine Stihler, Marc Tarabella

VERT/ALE

Jan Philipp Albrecht, Pascal Durand

4

-

EFDD

David Coburn, Robert Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz

ENF

Mylène Troszczynski, Marco Zanni

0

0

 

 

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Transport and Tourism (31.8.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Evžen Tošenovský

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Transport and Tourism calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Stresses that the budget allocated to transport and tourism should be in accordance with the importance and contribution of these sectors to economic growth, sustainable development, the interests of users and the existence of good quality jobs in the Union; regrets, in this respect, that budgetary lines related to the transport sector in Heading 1a have been decreased by the Council and requests that they be restored to their original level;

2.  Reiterates the importance of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding instrument for the completion of the TEN-T network and for achieving a Single European Transport Area; stresses that the budgetary cuts to the CEF made in the past, due to the funding of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) initiative, should be avoided in the future; regrets that it had not been possible to achieve a full recovery of funds for the CEF; calls on the Commission to come forward with new initiatives and financial rules to apply to combinations of grants from CEF-Transport and EFSI financing;

3.  Believes that CEF is a vital instrument with significant Union-added value to optimise the transport network across the Union, linking and/or modernising new and existing transport infrastructures and ensuring interoperability of transport services; considers that necessary funds should be safeguarded in order to achieve the primary scope of CEF-Transport, targeting the core network; stresses the need for an improved coordination between Member States in order to ensure consistency of the cross-border projects as part of the core rail, air and road infrastructure; emphasises also the importance of financing special plans for the upgrading of infrastructure most liable to deteriorate, such as bridges and underpasses; emphasises the importance of investing in regional airports as a catalyst for business efficiency and productivity and regional economic development;

4.  Stresses the need to further support the high speed railway projects connecting Western and Eastern parts of Europe; reiterates the importance of completing missing links at dismantled regional cross-border rail connections and of upgrading and maintaining existing transport infrastructure that would allow a better cooperation between Member States and/or third countries, for example the creation of the Black Sea macro region; welcomes the approach of the Commission to co-finance the reestablishment of regional cross-border rail connections that have been dismantled or abandoned; points out that optimised infrastructure is crucial for the development of the 'lagging regions' of the Union, and asks the Commission to develop specific budgetary instruments that support it; encourages the Member States, cross-border regions and the Commission to further intensify those bottom-up projects;

5.  Believes that, in light of the recent initiatives from the Commission and the European Investment Bank (EIB) to give a priority to loans and new financial tools, it is important to provide sufficient resources for grants, as grants remain an essential financing tool in the transport sector, especially for infrastructure and for other projects, especially those where an absence of private investments is foreseen; recalls that, in order to attain the objectives of the TEN-T programme, it is vital that highly technological projects, such as the European Rail Transport Management System (ERTMS), get adequate resources, including by exploiting public-private-partnership opportunities channelled through the EFSI scheme in order to leverage the necessary volumes throughout the rest of the current multi-annual financial framework (MFF); highlights, nevertheless, the importance of synergies between different funding schemes such as CEF, EFSI and ESIF in order to maximise the impact of Union funds;

6.  Asks the Commission to submit a report on the implementation and take-up level of structural and cohesion funds in infrastructure projects, specifying which ones contribute to the development of the core network, the corridors and the comprehensive network; demands that the Commission present to Parliament and the Council annual overviews of all Union co-funded concrete transport and tourism projects, including details of the corresponding amounts; further calls on the Commission in respect of the recently published mobility package to present an overview of the existing and planned safe and secure parking places for truck drivers; asks the Commission to present cost estimates for upgrading existing and building new safe and secure parking places and to explore possible options of funding schemes at a European level;

7.  Stresses the importance of the goals set by COP 21 with regard to transport in order to combat climate change; underlines that financial means should be available to ensure a modal shift from road to sustainable transport modes (rail, waterborne and inland waterway transport), and for optimising the multimodal connections and for shifting to digital transport services; reiterates the importance of enhancing a low carbon transport economy through the development of rail freight corridors, representing an essential element for shifting freight from road to rail and for improving the rail sustainability; considers that the ERTMS should be deployed in order to maximise the benefits for interoperability in the Single European Rail Area; encourages Member States to invest in smart, sustainable, integrated public transport; also recommends paying attention to noise reduction in transport to provide citizens with an environment of high quality; encourages the Commission to finance and support projects that develop and improve river transport, such as the dredging and cleaning-up of the River Danube.

8.  Underlines the critical role of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) – Galileo and EGNOS – for the transport system, particularly for security, safety, including in the aviation, road, railway and maritime transport sectors as well as for the development and exploitation of multi-modal and autonomous transport systems; reiterates the importance of sufficient financial support of downstream and upstream applications within the budgets for European GNSS programmes and Horizon 2020; regrets the decrease of 9,6 % in resources for the European GNSS - Galileo and EGNOS; urges restoring the budgetary lines dedicated to the European space programmes which are set to be further decreased by 5 % to the primary level and continuing to adequately financing of space programmes, whose costs should not be underestimated;

9.  Calls on the Commission to safeguard the financing for developing and providing global satellite-based radio navigation infrastructure and services for the Galileo and EGNOS infrastructure; reiterates the importance of allocating sufficient funding for 2018 for Galileo and EGNOS in order to secure swiftly uninterrupted GNSS services for smart roads and connected vehicles, smart fleet and cargo and traffic management such us Air Traffic Management (ATM), ERTMS, eCall; considers that necessary funding should be safeguarded for EGNOS in order to enable the extension of EGNOS coverage to South-Eastern and Eastern Europe as a priority and further to Africa and Middle East, and for the purpose of acquiring the necessary EGNOS Ranging Integrity Monitoring Stations (RIMS) and their interconnection to the system;

10.  Highlights the crucial tasks of European GNSS agency (GSA) as regards to Galileo and EGNOS and also recognises the GSA's contribution to the Union's competitiveness and technological innovation; is concerned that insufficient resources have been allocated to the GSA in order to fulfil its mandate and believes that it is necessary for GSA to be adequately staffed, including with highly specialised experts, in order to safeguard smooth functioning and exploitation of the European GNSS programmes; further stresses the important contribution of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in its capacity as the certification authority for EGNOS service provision and in the preparatory actions needed for the oversight of the Galileo performance;

11.  Highlights the importance of the European transport agencies for the good-functioning of the European transport area; considers that they should be allocated with adequate budgetary resources, in accordance with recent or foreseeable changes in their responsibilities;

12.  Emphasises the importance of effectively and definitively addressing the issue of migratory flows, be these from the sea or overland; hopes that the European Maritime Safety Agency, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency and Frontex will be provided with suitable financing for patrolling the external borders of the Union;

13.  Points out the security and safety challenges of aviation and the importance of the EASA contribution in this domain, in particular with regard to the threats linked to cyber security and space weather, as well as with regard to the safety of passengers flying in non-Union airspace; stresses the importance of allocating adequate funding to the EASA in order to ensure the successful uptake of the new responsibilities as defined in the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on common rules in the field of civil aviation and establishing a European Aviation Safety Agency, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council[1];

14.  Underlines once more that the EASA has already cut 5 % of posts over five years as agreed in the Interinstitutional Agreement; considers, therefore, that any further cuts proposed by the Council could endanger the proper functioning of EASA and could prevent EASA from fulfilling the tasks that have already been assigned to it and those that it will be assigned by the legislative authority; underlines further that the new EASA posts that are needed to fulfil additional tasks due to new policy developments and new legislation need to be counted outside any reduction target;

15.  Underlines that the EASA posts (including the related pensions) which are fully financed from industry and therefore have no impact on the Union budget should not be subject to any staff reduction foreseen in the lnterinstitutional Agreement;

16.  Emphasises that it should be left to the discretion of the EASA to increase the number of posts fully financed by industry during the financial year according to the fluctuating workload, such as industry demands; underlines that, for this purpose, the budgetary authority should, in addition to the number of posts financed by fees and charges already authorised through the adoption of the EASA budget, indicate the additional percentage (within an upward ceiling of 10 %) of posts that could be allowed by the EASA's Management Board on a proposal of the EASA to respond to an unforeseen evolution of the market demand; underlines further that the decision of the Management Board should be based on a documented evaluation of unforeseen workload and efficiency criteria;

17.  Highlights the importance of Horizon 2020 to foster and support projects related to research and innovation in smart transport logistics and mobility management, including autonomous driving, public and shared mobility as well as in transport safety; regrets the decrease in the financing of Horizon 2020 related to research and innovation for transport; considers that achieving a safe and seamless intelligent integrated transport represents a significant Union-added value for enhancing the European transport system; underlines the need to reinforce the contribution of Horizon 2020 and CEF together with other relevant Union funding sources for safety, security, innovation and digitalisation projects in the aviation domain with the close involvement of the EASA in their procurement and implementation;

18.  Reiterates the importance of securing appropriate funding for Joint Undertakings, among others SESAR, SHIFT2RAIL and CLEAN SKY; considers that SHIFT2RAIL Joint Undertaking should prioritise interoperability projects and maximise the benefits for interoperability in the Single European Rail Area; considers it to be important to allocate funding that will enable infrastructure to be maintained and quality criteria to be respected, in order to guarantee greater consumer protection and safety;

19.  Stresses the need for accurate funding for the implementation of the components of SESAR in order to ensure the deployment of Air Traffic Management (ATM) functionalities that are considered essential for the improvement of the Union's ATM system performance;

20.  Calls on the Commission to present the outcome of successful pilot projects and preparatory actions financed through the past years by the general budget of the Union; in particular, asks the Commission to present the state-of-play of the pilot project on cleaner space through deorbiting and innovative materials for space equipment, in order to enhance the effectiveness of the future Joint Technology Initiative applied to the space sector;

21.  Encourages the Commission to further prioritise the financing of security and safety measures for all means of transport that would have an impact on passenger flows; encourages the Commission to focus on the safety of vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists and motor-cyclists; encourages the Commission to support initiatives that could improve road safety and thus help to achieve the strategic goal of cutting the number of deaths on European roads in half by 2020 as well as the number of serious injuries; invites the Commission to take notice of the considerable gap in the quality of infrastructure between the 'lagging regions' and the rest of Europe, and asks it to intensify the investments on the former;

22.  Underlines the importance to support sustainable tourism whilst protecting its sources with natural, cultural, historical and industrial heritage; stresses the importance of shifting towards sustainable tourism, which entails better coordination between tourism and infrastructure projects; emphasises that promoting the EuroVelo network in combination with the TEN-T rail network offers interesting environmental and economic benefits, not least for the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); stresses that SMEs in the transport and tourism sectors are finding it difficult to adapt to the digital transformation and need support; calls for increased funding for the tourism sector and especially for SMEs and their digitisation; believes that funds should be allocated for mountain, rural, coastal, island and remote regions in order to further develop tourism in those areas;

23.  Is convinced that barrier-free accessibility to tourism services for persons with reduced mobility should be further developed; calls on the Commission to support various options for financing measures to ensure the accessibility of transport services, means of transport, infrastructure and intermodal transport hubs, as well as further measures to improve the accessibility of transport for persons with disabilities;

24.  Welcomes the new initiative InterRail and considers that it could offer the younger generation a chance to explore the freedom of movement by travelling in an environment-friendly way and calls for that project, like others in the field of tourism, to be entered in a direct and dedicated budget line independent from Heading 1a related to the transport sector and other sectors important to Union’s competitiveness and growth; reiterates its previous call on the Commission to put forward relevant proposals in this regard;

25.  Encourages the Commission to promote the revitalisation of comfortable European Night Trains as a sustainable alternative to short distance flights and long distance car travelling;

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

31.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

39

1

2

Members present for the final vote

Daniela Aiuto, Lucy Anderson, Inés Ayala Sender, Georges Bach, Deirdre Clune, Andor Deli, Isabella De Monte, Ismail Ertug, Jacqueline Foster, Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Miltiadis Kyrkos, Peter Lundgren, Gesine Meissner, Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar, Jens Nilsson, Markus Pieper, Salvatore Domenico Pogliese, Gabriele Preuß, Christine Revault D’Allonnes Bonnefoy, Dominique Riquet, Massimiliano Salini, David-Maria Sassoli, Claudia Schmidt, Claudia Țapardel, Keith Taylor, Pavel Telička, István Ujhelyi, Wim van de Camp, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, Roberts Zīle, Kosma Złotowski, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska

Substitutes present for the final vote

Matt Carthy, Jakop Dalunde, Bas Eickhout, Markus Ferber, Maria Grapini, Kateřina Konečná, Werner Kuhn, Franck Proust, Evžen Tošenovský, Matthijs van Miltenburg

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

39

+

ALDE

ECR

GUE/NGL

PPE

 

S&D

Verts/ALE

Gesine Meissner, Dominique Riquet, Pavel Telička, Matthijs van Miltenburg

Evžen Tošenovský, Roberts Zīle, Kosma Złotowski

Matt Carthy, Kateřina Konečná

Georges Bach, Deirdre Clune, Andor Deli, Markus Ferber,Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Werner Kuhn, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska, Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar, Markus Pieper, Salvatore Domenico Pogliese, Franck Proust, Massimiliano Salini, Claudia Schmidt, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, Wim van de Camp.

Lucy Anderson, Inés Ayala Sender, Isabella De Monte, Ismail Ertug, Maria Grapini, Miltiadis Kyrkos, Jens Nilsson, Gabriele Preuß, Christine Revault D'Allonnes Bonnefoy, David-Maria Sassoli, Claudia Țapardel, István Ujhelyi.

Jakop Dalunde, Bas Eickhout, Keith Taylor.

1

-

EFDD

Peter Lundgren

2

0

ECR

EFDD

Jacqueline Foster

Daniela Aiuto

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Regional Development (8.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Iskra Mihaylova

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Regional Development calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Underlines the importance of cohesion policy as the main public investment policy of the Union based on solidarity, pursuing its Treaty-based objective of reducing economic, social and territorial disparities within and between all the European regions; recognises the paramount contribution of the Union budget as the key instrument providing resources for the achievement of the cohesion policy priorities and objectives and recalls that it should contribute financially towards achieving the Europe 2020 targets; in that context, stresses the role of cohesion policy in creating growth and jobs across the Union, as well as in delivering key Union objectives and priorities, including its climate and energy targets and social objectives, and the need to maintain, enhance and simplify cohesion policy for setting the Union back on the path of convergence and further integration; understands the current need to increase expenditure into security, which is a prerequisite for achieving the goals of cohesion policy and other Union policies;

2.  Notes that cohesion policy has experienced under-implementation during the first years of the 2014-2020 period due to some delays and that, until 30 June 2017, according to the data provided by Commission's Directorate-General for Budget, there have been only about 60 billion EUR of accumulated payments in the Union for all the European Structural and Investment Funds (the ‘ESI Funds’), with an average accumulated pay rate of 23,72% (and 19,76% in less developed regions); points to the unacceptable delays in implementing the current programmes that have undermined their effectiveness so far and put pressure on managing authorities and beneficiaries, increasing the risk of errors and underperformance; urges, therefore, all stakeholders involved in the process to boost their cooperation in order to tackle the delays in the implementation of the current programmes; calls on the Commission to provide ongoing advice for Member States, to confront delays in the designation of the respective managing, certifying and auditing authorities, with a view to concluding their designation as soon as possible, and to collaborate actively in order to accelerate implementation and avoid automatic decommitment; calls on the Commission and Member States to work together to monitor in real time the implementation of programmes between 2014 and 2020, ensuring that payments remain in line with authorised commitment appropriations to avoid accumulation of unpaid bills; furthermore, urges the Member States to fully exploit the programming tools available in the current financial period, as well as to further ensure the smooth implementation of the operational programmes;

3.  Reminds the Commission to continue with the Task Force set in 2014 for 2007-2013 period in order to support and accelerate the implementation of 2014-2020 programmes;

4.  Acknowledges the Commission’s effort to phase out the backlog of outstanding payment claims; is concerned by the low level of submission of payment claims for 2014-2020 programmes which could lead to the reconstitution of a backlog of unpaid bills; in that context, urges the Commission to keep in mind the possibility of subsequent payment claim backlogs causing additional delays; welcomes the payment forecast until 2020 provided under the mid-term revision of the Multiannual financial framework and calls on its regular update every year; stresses the need to decrease differences among Member States regarding the reality forecasts by introducing standardised forecasting IT system;

5.  Notes the 25,7 % rise in the level of payment appropriations under Heading 1b in draft 2018 budget, as well as the 2,4% increase of total commitment appropriations, compared to 2017 budget; questions if those amounts are sufficient to face the payments under that heading given that the selection rate of operations is progressing and implementation is expected to reach cruising speed in 2018; stresses the need to provide the Union budget with adequate level of appropriations to cover the payments for cohesion policy, in order to prove the capacity of the Union to fulfil its commitments and strengthen its credibility;

6.  Calls for greater synergies of ESI Funds programmes with the other Union programmes; believes that grants should remain the basis of the financing of cohesion policy; points out that financial instruments can play a complementary role to grants, but they should be used only when their added value has been carefully demonstrated, based on ex-ante assessments analysing not only their leverage effect but also their contribution to policy principles and objectives; considers that the combination of funding instruments should be adequately monitored with the focus on results and objectives achieved; believes that the best approach to reach synergy is phasing of the projects and financing different phases from different instruments instead of blending the instruments; warns that the use of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) or other financial instruments must not undermine the ESI Funds;

7.  Welcomes the fact that the draft 2018 budget incorporates the elements of the mid-term revision package, which will allow greater flexibility; calls that no more reallocations or cuts from Heading 1.b of the MFF 2014-2020 are proposed by the Commission; calls on the Commission to continue to focus the Union budget implementation on the results, supports all steps undertaken towards a performance-based approach; points out that the 2018 budget should be implemented in line with the increased potential of the proposed simplification and flexibility within the “Omnibus package”; highlights the need to undertake actions to raise awareness of the benefits of the Union budget among citizens and results achieved and to implement measures to improve the communication about and the visibility of Union funds;

8.  Welcomes the new 140 EUR million financial envelope which has been created to facilitate the implementation of the Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP) between 2017-2020; reiterates the importance of ensuring that SRSP and technical assistance programmes work as complementary solutions; notes that SRSP funding will be taken from unused allocation for technical assistance and therefore call on the Commission to ensure that it doesn't scale back its ambition for specifically targeted assistance with a strong thematic purpose;

9.  Calls on the Commission to cooperate with the Member States to raise public awareness regarding Union priorities and ensure the transparent, fair and responsible use of Union resources, a general principle which aims to bring the European project closer to EU citizens;

10.  Notes that at the time of the mid-term review (MTR) the Commission did not consider it necessary to increase the overall payment ceilings after concluding that existing flexibilities were sufficient; believes that the Commission should continue to ensure it has open dialogue with the European Parliament on the issue as it continues to monitor ESI funds programme implementation;

11.  Notes that the Commission believes the risk of automatic de-commitments for 2014-2020 programming period is currently low; further notes that the automatic de-commitment rule for the 2014-2020 period (n+3) will apply for the first time at the end of 2017; given the slow pace of implementation, calls on the Commission to ensure that the European Parliament is provided with adequate and timely information as to the risk of de-commitments increasing, particularly as Member Sates seek to justify commitment tranches at the end of 2018.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

7.9.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

28

3

1

Members present for the final vote

Pascal Arimont, Mercedes Bresso, James Carver, Andrea Cozzolino, Rosa D’Amato, Raymond Finch, Krzysztof Hetman, Ivan Jakovčić, Marc Joulaud, Constanze Krehl, Sławomir Kłosowski, Louis-Joseph Manscour, Martina Michels, Jens Nilsson, Andrey Novakov, Younous Omarjee, Konstantinos Papadakis, Stanislav Polčák, Liliana Rodrigues, Fernando Ruas, Maria Spyraki, Matthijs van Miltenburg, Lambert van Nistelrooij, Kerstin Westphal

Substitutes present for the final vote

Andor Deli, John Howarth, Ivana Maletić, Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Georgi Pirinski, Bronis Ropė

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Santiago Fisas Ayxelà, Olga Sehnalová

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

28

+

ALDE

Ivan Jakovčić, Matthijs van Miltenburg

ECR

Sławomir Kłosowski

GUE/NGL

David Martin, Younous Omarjee, Dimitrios Papadimoulis

PPE

Pascal Arimont, Andor Deli, Santiago Fisas Ayxelà, Krzysztof Hetman, Marc Joulaud, Ivana Maletić, Andrey Novakov, Stanislav Polčák, Fernando Ruas, Maria Spyraki, Lambert van Nistelrooij

S&D

Mercedes Bresso, Andrea Cozzolino, John Howarth, Constanze Krehl, , Louis-Joseph Manscour, Jens Nilsson, Georgi Pirinski, Liliana Rodrigues, Olga Sehnalová, Kerstin Westphal

VERTS/ALE

Bronis Ropė

3

-

EFDD

James Carver, Raymond Finch

NI

Konstantinos Papadakis

1

0

EFDD

Rosa D'Amato

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development (31.8.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Tibor Szanyi

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Notes the proposed EUR 59,5 billion in commitments which represent a 1,7 % increase compared to 2017, and a 2,6 % increase in payments amounting to EUR 56,3 billion under the Draft Budget (DB) 2018 for Heading 2; notes, however, that the increase is mainly attributable to the lower amount of assigned revenue estimated to be available to the EAGF in the DB 2018 compared to the 2017 budget, amongst others as last instalments of significant past clearance decisions are due in 2017;

2.  Welcomes the fact that commitment appropriations for the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development basically remain at the same level as in the 2017 budget, while the requested payment appropriations are actually increasing;

3.  Notes that the main reason for no significant changes in the DB 2018 compared to the 2017 budget is that the majority of common agricultural policy (CAP) expenditure concerns pre-allocated Member State envelopes which show a relatively stable level of execution of the support over the years;

4.  Notes that the 2017 budget includes the financing for the EUR 500 million solidarity package for the dairy and other livestock sectors, while the decrease in support for that market measure will not have an impact on the 2018 budget;

5.  Underscores the importance of developing new markets for maintaining competitiveness and increasing the resistance of Union agriculture to market crises such as in the case of Russia embargo; calls therefore for the financial support of market development;

6.  Insists that any revenue to the Union budget deriving from any assigned revenues or repayments of irregularities from agriculture in previous years should remain under Heading 2, given the uncertain circumstances the agricultural sector is faced with; recalls in that respect that the Russian embargo has not been lifted and has severe negative effects notably for the fruit and vegetables sector and the dairy sector;  calls therefore on the Commission to provide effective support to sectors affected by those crises and for the creation of a new crisis reserve that does not rely on an annual financial discipline mechanism for its funding so that it can react in a timely manner to crisis situations that emerge;

7.  Highlights that administrative costs have to be secured for the CAP, especially to guarantee timely payments and to maintain adequate levels of effective control; insists that further cuts in administrative staff numbers can lead to higher delays and risks of error, and can jeopardise the implementation and objectives of the CAP; believes that further simplification, transparent and efficient management system and reducing red tape in the delivery of the CAP is necessary; stresses that decreases in the budget for administrative costs should not in any way lead to a transfer of the administrative burden onto farmers;

8.  Asks the Commission to ensure uniform application of the criteria of the active farmers clause with a view to the simplified but more reliable identification of those farmers;

9.  Highlights the importance of the rural development commitments and spending, and their potential for the creation of economic activity and jobs particularly in peripheral areas with higher unemployment rates, especially for younger generations; insists that the initiatives targeting young farmers, including region-specific programmes, should be maintained, which would support innovation and the necessary generation renewal; considers that support for young people should focus on their present needs, while avoiding to encourage them to take on excessive debt; highlights the European Parliaments' position on the young farmer scheme in the proposed “Omnibus” regulation, which aims to allow for full uptake of the young farmer scheme;

10.  Welcomes the school milk and fruit schemes as a successful measure and stresses that the schemes contribute to children eating healthily and that the funds for them should therefore remain in the long term;

11.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to monitor, in a timely manner, the price volatility of agricultural products, which has adverse effects on farmers' incomes, and to react promptly and effectively when needed;

12.  Highlights the importance of pilot projects to the agricultural and rural development sectors in recent years; therefore asks for continued support for ongoing and new pilot projects; calls on the Commission to carry out an ex-post evaluation of the efficiency and benefits of pilot projects and preparatory actions; insists that the Commission launches calls for projects as soon as the budget procedure is completed;

13.  Stresses the importance of identifying support measures to enhance the role of farmers in the supply chain, as well as ways of encouraging farmer organisations;

14.  Calls on the Commission to take into consideration the modifications put forward by the European Parliament to the “Omnibus” proposal in order to modernise and simplify the CAP and to secure finance for them in the 2018 budget on behalf of farming communities, including small and medium-sized family holdings and younger farmers;

15.  Stresses that it is essential that funds earmarked for research in the agri-food sector, in particular from the Horizon 2020 budget, remain fully available as such in order to stimulate and enhance innovation and smart solutions in the agricultural and rural development sectors, as is the case with funds from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) to enable broadband to be installed in rural areas; underlines the importance of practical applicability of results at farm level and the role of agricultural extension services; notes that integrated 'smart' solutions – such as smart villages, precision farming, digitalisation, the shared and circular economy, and social initiatives – can contribute to agriculture and overall well-being in rural areas; urges the Commission to plan funding for 'smart' approaches in the light of the CAP reform and the Cork 2.0 Declaration; highlights the fact that those 'smart' solutions should maintain coherence with environment, climate and biodiversity policy objectives, ensure close cooperation with relevant stakeholders from all Member States; stresses the importance of investing in precision agriculture with a view to streamlining production methods and reducing losses and of incentivising and supporting initiatives tailored to the needs of smallholdings without economies of scale so that they can benefit from new technologies;

16.  Welcomes the increase in appropriations intended to combat animal diseases and plant pests to EUR 40 million, as the Union is facing significant risks and increases in outbreaks of diseases such as Xylella fastidiosa, nodular dermatosis, African swine fever, bluetongue and Bird Influenza; believes that extra funding should be made available to the European Food Safety Authority to carry out comprehensive independent research, including into the effects of pesticides; calls for additional funding to be earmarked for the farmers in the olive-growing and olive oil sector who have suffered by the Xylella fastidiosa outbreak, to step up prevention measures in Europe and to restructure the sector and consolidate scientific research into the pathogen and its carrier;

17.  Insists on the need to provide funds to compensate for the economic losses suffered by farmers due to market crises and sanitary or phytosanitary crises such as Xylella fastidiosa, and reiterates the need to use the available margins under Heading 2 in cooperation with Heading 3 to this effect; insists that compensation for eradication should also cover rehabilitation of agroecosystems including the soil, as well as establishing robust biological diversity, especially ensuring genetic diversity of the planting stock that ideally includes resistance to or tolerance of the disease or pest; indeed, considers that one of the aims of any aid granted should be to ensure balanced, biologically diverse agro-ecosystems and landscapes that are less susceptible to future attacks;

18.  Stresses that storage programmes have proved effective in times of crisis and that a reduction in the financial resources earmarked in the planning process would be counter-productive;

19.  Notes that Brexit has no direct impact on the DB 2018; regrets however that the Reflection paper on the future of EU finances[1] is drawing up some critical scenarios for agriculture and rural development partly due to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union; therefore calls on the Commission and the Member States to show responsibility towards the CAP budget during the ongoing discussions, keeping in mind also possible trade flow disruptions; stresses that it is firmly opposed to any cuts in agricultural funding; therefore calls on the Commission to put forward a proposal to maintain Union financing of agriculture in the next MFF, taking into consideration the sector’s considerable capacity to keep hold of and create jobs, and to start looking for new financial resources for the Union budget as proposed by Mario Monti's High-Level Group without delay;

20.  Points out in particular that agriculture policy is a common policy and any cuts to the CAP budget would have disproportionate effects as they cannot be substituted by national funds due to state aid rules.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

30.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

35

1

6

Members present for the final vote

John Stuart Agnew, Clara Eugenia Aguilera García, Daniel Buda, Matt Carthy, Viorica Dăncilă, Michel Dantin, Jean-Paul Denanot, Albert Deß, Diane Dodds, Jørn Dohrmann, Herbert Dorfmann, Norbert Erdős, Luke Ming Flanagan, Martin Häusling, Esther Herranz García, Jan Huitema, Peter Jahr, Ivan Jakovčić, Jarosław Kalinowski, Zbigniew Kuźmiuk, Philippe Loiseau, Mairead McGuinness, Giulia Moi, Ulrike Müller, James Nicholson, Maria Noichl, Marijana Petir, Laurenţiu Rebega, Bronis Ropė, Maria Lidia Senra Rodríguez, Ricardo Serrão Santos, Czesław Adam Siekierski, Tibor Szanyi, Marc Tarabella, Marco Zullo

Substitutes present for the final vote

Bas Belder, Franc Bogovič, Maria Heubuch, Karin Kadenbach, Gabriel Mato, Momchil Nekov, Massimo Paolucci, Estefanía Torres Martínez, Tom Vandenkendelaere

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

35

+

ALDE

Ivan Jakovčić, Ulrike Müller

ECR

Bas Belder, Jørn Dohrmann, Zbigniew Kuźmiuk, James Nicholson

EFDD

Giulia Moi, Marco Zullo

ENF

Laurenţiu Rebega

GUE/NGL

Matt Carthy, Luke Ming Flanagan, Estefanía Torres Martínez

PPE

Franc Bogovič, Daniel Buda, Michel Dantin, Albert Deß, Herbert Dorfmann, Norbert Erdős, Esther Herranz García, Peter Jahr, Jarosław Kalinowski, Mairead McGuinness, Marijana Petir, Czesław Adam Siekierski, Tom Vandenkendelaere

S&D

Clara Eugenia Aguilera García, Jean-Paul Denanot, Viorica Dăncilă, Karin Kadenbach, Momchil Nekov, Maria Noichl, Massimo Paolucci, Ricardo Serrão Santos, Tibor Szanyi, Marc Tarabella

1

-

EFDD

John Stuart Agnew

6

0

ALDE

Jan Huitema

GUE/NGL

Maria Lidia Senra Rodríguez

NI

Diane Dodds

Verts/ALE

Maria Heubuch, Martin Häusling, Bronis Ropė

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Fisheries (4.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Alain Cadec

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Fisheries calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Takes the view that the Union budget for 2018 should incorporate the payment and commitment appropriations required to meet the funding needs of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP);

2.  Stresses the importance of the social and economic dimension of fishing for local communities in maritime and coastal regions; recognises the need to maintain sufficient financial provisions for enabling coastal, artisanal and small scale fleet sectors to obtain funding;

3.  Emphasises the need to give priority to projects focused on job creation and on diversifying local economies in order to add more value to their fishing activities and on the protection and recovery of fish stocks and marine ecosystems;

4.  Considers that the Union budget should foresee an appropriate level of payment and commitment appropriations to prevent payment difficulties and financial cuts for fisheries actions;

5.  Emphasises the need to use the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and other EU funding schemes to facilitate young people’s access to jobs in the fishing industry;

6.  Emphasises the need to provide the EMFF with a sufficient level of payment appropriations to enable it to invest in the sustainability, selectivity and competitiveness of the fishing fleet;

7.  Notes that Member States have adopted the EMFF operational programmes, but that they have not yet all appointed regulatory authorities, which is slowing down disbursement of the funds;

8.  Points out the need to guarantee sufficient financial support to control fisheries activities on board and in the ports in order to ensure and facilitate the proper implementation of the landing obligation; in that regard, calls on Member States to make use of the resources available under the EMFF for control and enforcement measures which are key to achieving the CFP objectives;

9.  Reiterates the importance of drawing on rigorous and independent scientific opinions when assessing the state of fishery resources, so that management decisions can be taken which make it possible to achieve maximum sustainable yields (MSY); urges Member States to use EMFF funding for the purposes of scientific data collection which is key to enabling rational and science-based decisions to be taken on fisheries policy issues;

10.  Criticises the fact that the direct management by the Commission of EMFF funding of regulatory activities has not worked, owing to a reluctance on the part of Member States to put forward joint projects, despite a lower Member State co-financing rate;

11.  Emphasises the importance of the role of the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) as regards the governance of fishing fleets and the supervision of monitoring procedures; calls for the EFCA to be given the funds it needs to do its job;

12.  Considers that the external dimension of the CFP makes it essential that realistic budgetary forecasts be drawn up with a view to funding sustainable fisheries partnership agreements with third countries;

13.  Points out that sustainable partnership agreements with third countries are also aimed at combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

30.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

20

1

2

Members present for the final vote

Marco Affronte, Clara Eugenia Aguilera García, Renata Briano, Alain Cadec, Richard Corbett, Mike Hookem, Ian Hudghton, Carlos Iturgaiz, Werner Kuhn, António Marinho e Pinto, Gabriel Mato, Liadh Ní Riada, Ulrike Rodust, Remo Sernagiotto, Ricardo Serrão Santos, Isabelle Thomas, Peter van Dalen, Jarosław Wałęsa

Substitutes present for the final vote

Elisabetta Gardini, Czesław Hoc, Verónica Lope Fontagné, Francisco José Millán Mon, Maria Lidia Senra Rodríguez

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Mircea Diaconu, France Jamet

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

20

+

ALDE

Mircea Diaconu, António Marinho e Pinto

ECR

Czesław Hoc, Remo Sernagiotto, Peter van Dalen

PPE

Alain Cadec, Elisabetta Gardini, Carlos Iturgaiz, Gabriel Mato, José Millán, Werner Kuhn, Jarosław Wałęsa

S&D

Clara Eugenia Aguilera García, Renata Briano, Richard Corbett, Ulrike Rodust, Ricardo Serrão Santos, Isabelle Thomas

VERTS/ALE

Marco Affronte, Ian Hudghton,

1

-

EFDD

Mike Hookem

2

0

GUE/NGL

Liadh Ní Riada, Maria Lidia Senra Rodríguez

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Culture and Education (11.7.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Morten Løkkegaard

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Culture and Education calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.   Deeply regrets that the draft budget does not include any of the additional 50 million EUR earmarked for Erasmus+ in the MFF revision for the period 2018-2020; calls for the full 50 million EUR to be made available in 2018 and distributed between the ‘education and training’ (12 million EUR) and 'youth' (38 million EUR) budget lines of Erasmus+, so that the programme can fully deliver as a strategic investment in Europe’s young people;

2.  Underscores that common European challenges need a common European response; stresses, in this respect, the need to support large-scale innovation projects in the field of education, training and youth carried out by European Civil Society networks; calls, once again, for allocating part of the overall Erasmus+ funding of KA2 'Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices' to centralised actions; notes, furthermore, the need to increase the operational support to European networks under KA3 ‘Support for policy reform’ in order to maximise the promotion and dissemination of the opportunities offered by Erasmus+;

3.  Recalls that the Youth Guarantee scheme and the Youth Employment Initiative are key tools to address the persistent problem of high levels of youth unemployment and calls for their continued improvement, as well as a substantial budget increase; points out that policies supporting demand and investments, growth-enhancing structural reforms and coordination in social policies are needed to support quality transitions of young people into the labour market in a sustainable way;

4.  Expresses concern that funding for the European Solidarity Corps (ESC) draws heavily on Erasmus+ and, to a lesser extent, on other programmes, notably the Employment and Social Innovation programme; calls on the Commission to elaborate on the detailed budgetary links between the new Corps and the EVS and on the distinction between the volunteering and occupational strands, so as to ensure there will be no substitution of potential quality jobs with unpaid volunteering; welcomes the fact that 18.4 million EUR set aside for the Corps in 2018 is fresh money; insists that funding for new initiatives does not put further pressure on Erasmus+ programme resources and that no other funds than those committed to the EU part of the EVS be transferred from Erasmus+ to the Corps; insists that financing dedicated to volunteering activities under the ESC should at least match the budget withdrawn from the EVS;

5.  Highlights the chronic under-funding of the Europe for Citizens programme; deplores the 740 000 EUR reduction in the latter's 2018 budget vis-à-vis the financial programming figure; recalls that this represents around 3% of the EfC budget and will impact its already low project success rates; calls for additional funds to be directed to action grants under the EfC budget for 2018;

6.  Calls for an additional 14 million EUR to be committed to the Creative Europe budget for 2018 in order to meet the expectations of European citizens, as well as the ambitions of the respective sub-programmes; expresses concern that particularly the Culture sub-programme is severely underfinanced, and consequently struggles to achieve satisfactory success rates; highlights that the MEDIA sub-programme and the Guarantee Facility would also benefit, in terms of improved success rates, from a stable and consistent budget allocation;

7.  Welcomes the efforts made by the EU institutions in recent years to address the payments backlog; points out that delays in finalising contracts between the relevant bodies and beneficiaries, as well as late payments, jeopardise full implementation of the programmes by the Commission;

8.   Underlines the importance of cultural and educational work for the successful integration of refugees in European host societies and therefore calls for the more permanent introduction of refugee integration projects as one of the objectives in the Erasmus+ and Creative Europe programmes on the basis of the work that has started under the special calls 2016;

9.   Underscores the need to further strengthen the international dimension of Erasmus+, Creative Europe, Europe for Citizens and Horizon 2020 under the EEAS budget section as a central element in developing further the people-to-people approach in the EU's external cultural relations;

10.   Welcomes the additional 4 million EUR on the Creative Europe budget line to fund the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018; deplores, however, the absence of a stand-alone budget line in accordance with the Parliament and Council commitment to make 7 million EUR for the EYCH “visible in a budget line”;

11.  Calls on Member States and the EIB to fully use the potential of EFSI to support the cultural and creative sector, and thereby drive growth, by allocating a greater share of EFSI funding to cultural and creative industries; urges, furthermore, the Commission and the EIB to promote the interaction between the Cultural and Creative Sector Guarantee Facility and EFSI in order to provide fit-for-purpose loans for cultural and creative industries;

12.   Calls on the Commission to review initiatives under the ‘multimedia actions’ budget line to ensure that the budget effectively supports high-quality independent coverage of EU affairs; reiterates its support for a sustainable multiannual funding arrangement for Euranet+; expresses its concern over the relatively small allocation to Euranet+ for 2018; calls on the European Commission to secure a sustainable long-term solution whereby Euranet+ becomes an integral part of the EU’s annual budget, ensuring a level of funding whereby its reach and number of listeners can be expanded over the coming years;

13.  Underscores the value of pilot projects and preparatory actions in shaping future EU policy initiatives; points to the success of the New Narrative for Europe PA, which has effectively fostered debate and fresh thinking among young people on the EU's challenges; calls on the Commission to assess how the initiative could be continued through the Youth strand of Erasmus+; considers that long-term continuation of the initiative would be best ensured through the establishment of a legal base and the provision of dedicated funds through fresh money;

14.  Welcomes the inclusion of the Special Annual Events budget line in the budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018, which will allow the development of a sense of European belonging among citizens; notes that the scope of the Special Annual Event should demonstrably serve the added value to the European citizens across the EU Member States;

15.   Highlights the importance of creating the best conditions for ensuring that citizens can understand and participate in the functioning of the Union, its policies and processes; emphasises, in that respect, the need for the European Union to improve its communication policy;

16.   Highlights the importance of statistical research and access to comparable data resources allowing for the effective monitoring and analysis of the cultural, economic and societal impact of policies in the field of culture and education; in this respect, recalls the need to allocate sufficient resources for that purpose;

17.  Stresses that in order to address the chronically low success rates of some EU programmes that are caused by underfunding and to provide for a counter-cyclical function of the EU budget, a system of genuine and consistent own resources must be put in place for the post-2020 MFF.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

11.7.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

22

4

3

Members present for the final vote

Isabella Adinolfi, Dominique Bilde, Nikolaos Chountis, Silvia Costa, María Teresa Giménez Barbat, Giorgos Grammatikakis, Petra Kammerevert, Svetoslav Hristov Malinov, Stefano Maullu, Morten Messerschmidt, Luigi Morgano, Momchil Nekov, John Procter, Michaela Šojdrová, Yana Toom, Helga Trüpel, Sabine Verheyen, Julie Ward, Bogdan Brunon Wenta, Bogdan Andrzej Zdrojewski, Milan Zver, Krystyna Łybacka

Substitutes present for the final vote

Mary Honeyball, Marc Joulaud, Morten Løkkegaard, Emma McClarkin, Martina Michels

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Lefteris Christoforou, Maria Heubuch

OPINION of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (5.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur for opinion: Petr Ježek

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Takes note of the draft budget 2018 (DB 2018); regrets the reduction in both commitment appropriations (CA) and payment appropriations (PA) in Heading III compared to 2017; underlines that those decreases cannot be justified by delays in implementation of agreed measures; welcomes the top-up of Heading III by an additional EUR 817,1 million above its ceiling using the flexibility instrument; highlights that the proposed level of expenditure will be insufficient to cover the needs of the Union in the fields of migration and security respectively;

2.  Believes that the large budget reduction (49,7 % in PA) for the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) undermines the importance and urgency of the AMIF policy objectives; challenges the Commission’s assertions in DB 2018 that justify its proposed reduction in AMIF funding; welcomes the Commission proposal to reinforce frontline activities, including budgetary allocations for improved cooperation on return/readmission with third countries; is concerned that the needs for reception, care and integration of asylum seekers may be underestimated by the Commission; stresses that security for those who seek protection in the Union should not be adversely affected by budgetary cuts;

3.  Considers that in the absence of an agreement on the revision of the Dublin Regulation[1], relocations should continue to be implemented beyond September 2017 and considers that this is required in the light of the fair sharing of responsibility and solidarity between Member States;

4.  Calls on the Commission to present an amending letter as soon as the legal bases related to the European Agenda on Migration, in particular the reform of the Dublin system, the Entry/Exit system, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), have been adopted, taking full account of their financial implications, in order to secure appropriate and swift funding for an effective European asylum and migration policy;

5.  Recalls that the fair and transparent distribution of funding between the different objectives of the AMIF was a priority for the European Parliament during negotiations leading to the adoption of that fund; calls on the Commission accordingly to increase the number of budget lines under the AMIF to facilitate a better readability and transparency of how the financial resources allocated to the different objectives and thus to those budgetary lines will be spent; calls, in particular, on the Commission to separate expenditure on enhancing fair return strategies from expenditure on legal migration and promoting the effective integration of third-country nationals in all future draft budgets as proposed in the opinions of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the 2015 and 2016 Budgets;

6.  Reiterates the importance to make targeted funding available to tackle the root causes of the migration and refugee crisis; stresses, to this end, that the Union budget should finance measures in countries of origin of migrants as well as in host countries of refugees, including, but not limited to measures addressing poverty, unemployment, education and economic opportunities, as well as instability, conflict and climate change;

7.  Stresses the significant role played by civil society organisations in saving the lives of migrants and asylum seekers at the external borders as well as in safeguarding, promoting and implementing their rights; calls for more financial support to be given to strengthen the activities of civil society;

8.  Regrets the significant budget reduction for the Internal Security Fund (ISF) (35,6 % in PA); stresses that in light of the continued security threat in the Union, ISF funding should be sufficient to aid Member States in dealing with threats to internal security, especially cross-border organised and serious crime, terrorism and cybercrime; highlights the need to sufficiently fund efforts to improve information sharing and to fight cybercrime;

9.  Welcomes the funding of instruments for emergency assistance in AMIF (EMAS) and for emergency humanitarian support inside the Union (ESI) in the amounts of EUR 50 million and EUR 200 million respectively;

10.  Notes the proposed increases in the DB 2018 for expenditure and establishment plans for all agencies in the area of Justice and Home Affairs classified as holding “new tasks”; regrets, however, that the increases proposed are lower than those requested by most agencies; stresses the importance of staff increases for eu-LISA, Eurojust, CEPOL and Europol; calls for budgetary increases for Eurojust due to the increased requirements for judicial cooperation in the Union, in particular in light of the establishment of an European Public Prosecutor’s Office; without impacting upon the budgetary allocation of other agencies in the area of Justice and Home Affairs, calls furthermore for additional financial resources for Europol in light of their increased workload; underlines that additional financial resources for Europol and Eurojust should be invested into the funding of Joint Investigation Teams; welcomes the budget increase for the European Data Protection Supervisor in view of the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation[2]; calls for additional human resources to be allocated to EASO in order to support an enhanced mandate to transform EASO into a fully-fledged agency which is capable of providing the necessary operational and technical assistance to Member States; calls for additional human resources to be allocated to the Fundamental Rights Agency; regrets that the Fundamental Rights Agency's mandate still limits its role in support of fundamental rights; underlines that the Fundamental Rights Agency should be able to offer opinions on legislative proposals on its own initiative and that its remit should extend to all areas of rights protected under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, including, for instance, issues of police and judicial cooperation;

11.  Points out that the Commission's proposal, for the third year in a row, does not leave any margin under the ceiling for Heading III, evidencing the outdated size of the smallest MFF heading, as argued by the European Parliament as part of the mid-term revision process;

12.  Notes that Eurojust is currently facing an significant increase in the workload as well as complexity and number of cases which has increased by 100 % in the last five years; regrets therefore the decrease in the operational funding and staffing level for Eurojust; underlines that appropriate funding of Eurojust is necessary for it to fulfil effecively its key role in the promotion of judicial cooperation in criminal matters; urges to raise the funds allocated for the Joint Investigation Teams due to the significant increase of transnational criminal cases and to simplify as well as to render the use of those funds more flexible;

13.  Asks for increased funding to fight against the phenomenon of radicalisation leading to violent extremism within the Union; considers that this can be achieved by promoting integration and fighting against discrimination, racism and xenophobia.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

31.8.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

40

9

0

Members present for the final vote

Jan Philipp Albrecht, Malin Björk, Caterina Chinnici, Daniel Dalton, Frank Engel, Raymond Finch, Ana Gomes, Nathalie Griesbeck, Sylvie Guillaume, Monika Hohlmeier, Brice Hortefeux, Sophia in ‘t Veld, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, Roberta Metsola, Claude Moraes, Soraya Post, Judith Sargentini, Birgit Sippel, Branislav Škripek, Csaba Sógor, Helga Stevens, Traian Ungureanu, Marie-Christine Vergiat, Udo Voigt, Josef Weidenholzer, Cecilia Wikström, Kristina Winberg, Tomáš Zdechovský, Auke Zijlstra

Substitutes present for the final vote

Marina Albiol Guzmán, Maria Grapini, Anna Hedh, Petr Ježek, Jeroen Lenaers, Andrejs Mamikins, Angelika Mlinar, Christine Revault D’Allonnes Bonnefoy, Barbara Spinelli, Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

André Elissen, Rosa Estaràs Ferragut, Arndt Kohn, Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, Philippe Lamberts, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska, Adam Szejnfeld, Julie Ward, Bogdan Brunon Wenta

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

40

+

ALDE

Nathalie Griesbeck, Petr Ježek, Angelika Mlinar, Cecilia Wikström, Sophia in 't Veld

ECR

Daniel Dalton, Helga Stevens, Branislav Škripek

PPE

Frank Engel, Rosa Estaràs Ferragut, Monika Hohlmeier, Brice Hortefeux, Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, Jeroen Lenaers, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska, Roberta Metsola, Adam Szejnfeld, Csaba Sógor, Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, Traian Ungureanu, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, Bogdan Brunon Wenta, Tomáš Zdechovský

S&D

Caterina Chinnici, Ana Gomes, Maria Grapini, Sylvie Guillaume, Anna Hedh, Arndt Kohn, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, Andrejs Mamikins, Claude Moraes, Soraya Post, Christine Revault D'Allonnes Bonnefoy, Birgit Sippel, Julie Ward, Josef Weidenholzer

VERTS/ALE

Jan Philipp Albrecht, Philippe Lamberts, Judith Sargentini

9

-

EFDD

Raymond Finch, Kristina Winberg

ENF

André Elissen, Auke Zijlstra

GUE/NGL

Marina Albiol Guzmán, Malin Björk, Barbara Spinelli, Marie-Christine Vergiat

NI

Udo Voigt

0

0

 

 

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

  • [1]    Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person (OJ L 180, 29.6.2013, p. 31).
  • [2]    Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC ( General Data Protection Regulation) (OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, p. 1).

OPINION of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (13.7.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Danuta Maria Hübner

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Constitutional Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Notes the Commission’s proposed decrease in appropriations for Heading 3 of 18,9 % in commitment appropriations and 21,7 % in payment appropriations as compared to the 2017 budget, which is still slightly above the initially programmed amount for this year; notes that the Commission leaves no margin in Heading 3 and proposes the mobilisation of the Flexibility Instrument for EUR 817,1 million in order to maintain sufficient migration and security funding for 2018;

2.  Welcomes, in particular, the proposed increase of 4,2 % in commitment appropriations and 8,6 % in payment appropriations for the ‘Europe for Citizens’ programme and the 1,2% increase in commitment appropriations for the “Rights, Equality and Citizenship” programme, as compared to the 2017 budget, since these programmes contribute to the enhancement of overall civic participation in Union politics and the exercise of the rights deriving from Union citizenship; in this regard, commits itself to strengthening, together with the Commission, the structural dialogue between the EU Institutions and organisations representing European civil society;

3.  Notes a decrease of EUR 100 000 in the commitment appropriations for the European Citizens Initiative (ECI), and points to the need to ensure sufficient funding to promote the use of this instrument, which is a valuable tool of participatory democracy;

4.  Notes the increase in funding for communication actions by 0,2 % in commitment appropriations and 2,1 % in payment appropriations, and regrets that the increase is not more substantial, especially in view of the significance of the year 2018 for communication with citizens in preparation for the European elections in 2019 and in view of the link between such funding and ensuring a broad public debate and the involvement of citizens and national parliaments in the discussion on the future of Europe in reaction to the Commission’s White Paper presented earlier this year;

5.  Calls on its Bureau and on the Commission to bring about an adequate increase in the resources of the Transparency Unit within the European Parliament and the Joint Transparency Register Secretariat;

6.  Deplores the fact that the Commission continuously uses money from existing budget lines to finance newly created funds, which are outside the Union budget and which are therefore not subject to parliamentary scrutiny;

7.  Stresses the need for a coherent budgetary approach to the provision of information about the relevance of the European elections; calls therefore for a campaign to inform citizens about Parliament’s role as the institution that represents them directly at European level, about their electoral rights, about the European dimension of their vote and about the link between their vote and the election of the Commission President.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

12.7.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

19

4

0

Members present for the final vote

Michał Boni, Mercedes Bresso, Elmar Brok, Richard Corbett, Pascal Durand, Danuta Maria Hübner, Diane James, Ramón Jáuregui Atondo, Morten Messerschmidt, Maite Pagazaurtundúa Ruiz, Markus Pieper, Helmut Scholz, György Schöpflin, Pedro Silva Pereira, Barbara Spinelli, Claudia Țapardel, Josep-Maria Terricabras, Kazimierz Michał Ujazdowski

Substitutes present for the final vote

Gerolf Annemans, Cristian Dan Preda, Jasenko Selimovic, Rainer Wieland

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Pál Csáky

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

19

+

ALDE

Maite Pagazaurtundúa Ruiz, Jasenko Selimovic

GUE/NGL

Helmut Scholz, Barbara Spinelli

PPE

Michał Boni, Elmar Brok, Pál Csáky, Danuta Maria Hübner, Markus Pieper, Cristian Dan Preda, György Schöpflin, Rainer Wieland

S&D

Mercedes Bresso, Richard Corbett, Ramón Jáuregui Atondo, Pedro Silva Pereira, Claudia Țapardel

VERTS/ALE

Pascal Durand, Josep-Maria Terricabras

4

-

ECR

Morten Messerschmidt, Kazimierz Michał Ujazdowski

ENF

Gerolf Annemans

NI

Diane James

0

0

 

 

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (27.9.2017)

for the Committee on Budgets

on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2018
(2017/2044(BUD))

Rapporteur: Barbara Matera

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

A.  whereas equality between women and men is one of the values on which the Union is founded and which the Union promotes;

B.  whereas the European Parliament has repeatedly called for sufficient funding and keeping as high profile as possible for the Daphne specific objective of the Rights, Equality and Citizenship programme to protect women and girls against violence;

C.  whereas one of the main objectives of the draft general budget for the European Union for 2018 is strategic investment and sustainable growth in order to support economic cohesion and to create jobs, in particular for young people; whereas, in this regard, it is important to also focus on enhancing women’s potential in all sectors of the economy, including the digitalised economy, information and communication technologies (ICT) and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM); whereas, with a specific focus on gender in those areas, it is necessary to address the significant gender gap and the Union-wide skills shortfall in the ICT and STEM sectors;

D.  whereas access to public services is crucial for women’s economic independence and empowerment, while public services remain an important employment sector for women;

1.  Reaffirms its request to use gender budgeting within the budgetary procedure and to use budgetary expenditure as an effective tool for promoting equality between women and men; recalls that gender budgeting is a methodology that needs to be applied to all Union budget lines, and not only to those programmes where the implications for a gender impact seem most relevant;

2.  Recommends developing a budget plan for implementing gender mainstreaming in the Union institutions; recalls that gender mainstreaming is a legal obligation stemming directly from the Treaties;

3.  Stresses the need to increase resources for the Daphne specific objective in line with allocations of the previous programming period and, with a view to preparing the next Multiannual Financial Framework, to have a separate budget line for this specific objective; as gender equality goals are too often subsumed by other policy goals that are addressed within the same budget line;

4.  Stresses the need for funding to specifically support the most vulnerable women and girls in our society; particularly women with disabilities, refugees, and victims of trafficking and abuse;

5.  Calls for allocations to support women’s entrepreneurship and to ensure and encourage access for women to loans and equity finance through Union programmes and funds, such as COSME, Horizon 2020 and the European Social Fund;

6.  Welcomes the continuation of funding for the Youth Employment Initiative; calls for equal participation of girls and young women in the measures covered by that initiative to be ensured and special attention to be paid to quality offers of training and employment for them, including in digitalised economy, ICT and STEM sectors;

7.  Takes note of the proposed small increase in budgetary allocations for the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE); stresses that any future European observatory on femicide or violence against women should be created within the EIGE, so that its expertise and available resources can be efficiently and synergistically used; calls for its budget and staff establishment plan to be increased in order to fulfil those new tasks;

8.  Deplores that the European Fund for Strategic Investments does not include a gender perspective and stresses that a successful process of recovery is not possible without addressing the impact of the crises on women.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

25.9.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

13

3

2

Members present for the final vote

Maria Arena, Malin Björk, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, Arne Gericke, Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, Angelika Mlinar, Marijana Petir, Terry Reintke, Ángela Vallina, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, Anna Záborská

Substitutes present for the final vote

Eleonora Forenza, Edouard Martin

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Marie-Christine Arnautu, Jane Collins, Claudiu Ciprian Tănăsescu, Axel Voss, Tiemo Wölken

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

13

+

ALDE

Angelika Mlinar

GUE/NGL

Malin Björk, Eleonora Forenza, Ángela Vallina

PPE

Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, Axel Voss, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi

S&D

Maria Arena, Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, David Martin, Claudiu Ciprian Tănăsescu, Tiemo Wölken

Verts/ALE

Terry Reintke

3

-

ECR

Arne Gericke

EFDD

Jane Collins

ENF

Marie-Christine Arnautu

2

0

PPE

Marijana Petir, Anna Záborská

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

Date adopted

10.10.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

30

6

2

Members present for the final vote

Nedzhmi Ali, Jonathan Arnott, Richard Ashworth, Reimer Böge, Lefteris Christoforou, Gérard Deprez, Manuel dos Santos, José Manuel Fernandes, Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, Jens Geier, Ingeborg Gräßle, Monika Hohlmeier, John Howarth, Bernd Kölmel, Siegfried Mureşan, Liadh Ní Riada, Jan Olbrycht, Urmas Paet, Pina Picierno, Răzvan Popa, Paul Rübig, Jordi Solé, Patricija Šulin, Eleftherios Synadinos, Indrek Tarand, Isabelle Thomas, Inese Vaidere, Monika Vana, Daniele Viotti, Tiemo Wölken, Marco Zanni, Stanisław Żółtek

Substitutes present for the final vote

Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Andrey Novakov, Derek Vaughan, Tomáš Zdechovský

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Marie-Pierre Vieu, Auke Zijlstra

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

30

+

ALDE

Nedzhmi Ali, Gérard Deprez, Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Urmas Paet

GUE/NGL

Liadh Ní Riada

PPE

Reimer Böge, Lefteris Christoforou, José Manuel Fernandes, Ingeborg Gräßle, Monika Hohlmeier, Siegfried Mureşan, Andrey Novakov Jan Olbrycht, Paul Rübig, Patricija Šulin, Inese Vaidere, Tomáš Zdechovský

S&D

Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, Jens Geier, John Howarth, Pina Picierno, Răzvan Popa, Manuel dos Santos, Isabelle Thomas, Derek Vaughan, Daniele Viotti, Tiemo Wölken

Verts/ALE

Jordi Solé, Indrek Tarand, Monika Vana

6

-

ECR

Bernd Kölmel

EFDD

Jonathan Arnott

ENF

Marco Zanni, Auke Zijlstra, Stanisław Żółtek

NI

Eleftherios Synadinos

2

0

ECR

Richard Ashworth

GUE/NGL

Marie-Pierre Vieu

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention