REPORT on Council's position on Draft amending budget No 7/2010 of the European Union for the financial year 2010, Section III- Commission
14.9.2010 - (13476/2010 – C7‑0261/2010 – 2010/2120(BUD))
Committee on Budgets
Rapporteur: László Surján
MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION
on Council's position on Draft amending budget No 7/2010 of the European Union for the financial year 2010, Section III – Commission
(13476/2010 – C7‑0261/2010 – 2010/2120(BUD))
The European Parliament,
– having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and in particular Article 314 thereof and to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, and in particular Article 106a thereof,
– having regard to Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 of 25 June 2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities[1], and particularly Articles 37 and 38 thereof,
– having regard to the general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2010, as finally adopted on 17 December 2009[2],
– having regard to the Interinstitutional Agreement of 17 May 2006 between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline and sound financial management[3],
– having regard to Draft amending budget No 7/2010 of the European Union for the financial year 2010, which the Commission presented on 12 July 2010 (COM(2010)0383),
– having regard to Council's position on Draft amending budget No 7/2010, which the Council established on 13 September 2010 (13476/2010 – C7‑0261/2010),
– having regard to Rule 75b and 75e of its Rules of Procedure,
– having regard to the report of the Committee on Budgets (A7‑0250/2010),
A. whereas the Council's position on Draft amending budget No 7/2010 covers the necessary modifications concerning the creation of a new budget item 01 04 01 03 for the guarantee provided by the European Union in accordance with the provisions of Article 122(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and, correspondingly, a new Article 802 on the revenue side,
B. whereas the purpose of Draft amending budget No 7/2010 is to formally enter this budgetary adjustment into the 2010 budget,
C. whereas the Council adopted its position on 13 September 2010,
1. Takes note of Draft amending budget No 7/2010;
2. Approves Council's position on Draft amending budget No 7/2010 unamended and instructs its President to declare that Amending budget No 5/2010 has been definitively adopted and to arrange for its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union;
3. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission .
EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
According to Article 37(1) of the Financial Regulation, the Commission may present
Draft amending budgets, if there are "unavoidable, exceptional or unforeseen circumstances".
Concerning the different points of Draft Amending Budget No 7/2010 and Councils position on it, your rapporteur has the following comments:
This amending Budget goes back to the initiative of Committee on Budgets and its chairman suggesting to take advantage of an amending budgets to introduce an amendment creating a p.m. line (token entry) for the funding of the guarantees foreseen in the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism.
For memory, the EFSM was created in May 2010 via a Council Regulation[1] adopted on the basis of article 122 par. 2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) - without EP participation and it consists of a mechanism providing for the possibility for the Union to borrow funds in the capital market to loan to Member States in financial difficulties. The European budget should only be called to intervene in last resort, in the event that the Member State beneficiary of the loan is not able to reimburse it. The mechanism is limited to 60 billion Euros.
The committee agreed to introduce it in one of the next amending budgets to be submitted to EP.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Lewandowski communicated his intention to present a specific amending budget to that end (letter to chairman Lamassoure of 21 June2010). Coordinators of the committee on Budgets agreed with this approach.
Draft Amending Budget (DAB) No 7 for the year 2010 covers the creation of a new budget item 01 04 01 03 for the guarantee provided by the European Union and, correspondingly, a new article 802 on the revenue side. A token entry (p.m.) is proposed for commitment and payment appropriations as well as revenue at this time. If necessary, the Commission will propose to make available the appropriations needed by means of a budgetary transfer or an amending budget.
To grant this financial assistance it is planned that the Commission shall borrow on the capital markets or with financial institutions on behalf of the EU. In order to honour its obligations should the debtors default, the Commission may draw on its cash resources to service the debt provisionally. Article 12 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000 of 22 May 2000 implementing Decision 2000/597/EC, Euratom on the system of the Communities’ own resources shall apply. Subsequently, it may be necessary to budget the operation.
Reimbursements after an initial default would be dealt with as follows:
If the exceptional cash advances called by the Commission would not yet have been budgeted, these would be returned to the Member States as quickly as possible. Otherwise they would be budgeted under the new revenue article, which would consequently reduce the subsequent EU budget contributions by Member States.
According to the Commission, the intervention of the European budget remains only hypothetic; therefore it states that DAB 7/2010 had no financial consequences, which of course can only be true for the technical adaption which consists in preparing the necessary budgetary structure.
- [1] No. 407/2010 of 11 May 2010, establishing a European financial stabilisation mechanism, OJ L 118 of 12 May 2010, p. 1
RESULT OF FINAL VOTE IN COMMITTEE
|
Date adopted |
13.9.2010 |
|
|
|
||
|
Result of final vote |
+: –: 0: |
35 2 0 |
||||
|
Members present for the final vote |
Marta Andreasen, Francesca Balzani, Reimer Böge, Giovanni Collino, Jean-Luc Dehaene, Isabelle Durant, James Elles, Göran Färm, José Manuel Fernandes, Eider Gardiazábal Rubial, Salvador Garriga Polledo, Jens Geier, Ivars Godmanis, Ingeborg Gräßle, Estelle Grelier, Carl Haglund, Lucas Hartong, Jutta Haug, Jiří Havel, Monika Hohlmeier, Sidonia Elżbieta Jędrzejewska, Anne E. Jensen, Ivailo Kalfin, Jan Kozłowski, Giovanni La Via, Vladimír Maňka, Barbara Matera, Nadezhda Neynsky, Dominique Riquet, László Surján, Helga Trüpel, Derek Vaughan |
|||||
|
Substitute(s) present for the final vote |
Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, Roberto Gualtieri, Riikka Manner, Jan Olbrycht, Paul Rübig |
|||||