MEPs support paying back €4.5bn to member states
Refund to be deducted from 2011 contributions in move seen as an overture to member states.
The European Parliament has approved plans to refund member states a total of €4.54 billion that remains unspent from the bloc’s 2010 budget.
Tuesday’s (5 July) decision was seen as a peace overture from the Parliament to member states as the two sides prepare for their first round of face-to-face negotiations on the EU’s 2012 budget on Monday (11 July). After these preliminaries, the negotiations will move up a gear at the end of October, once the Parliament has decided its official position.
The refund will be deducted from member states’ contributions to this year’s EU budget. Of the total surplus given back, €2.7bn comes from unspent funds on EU programmes, and the rest from fines and from interest charged on late payments. Germany will get the largest share of the surplus, €923 million, followed by France, with €741m. The UK will get €639m back.
The Parliament’s approval for the refund was given despite the serious misgivings that many MEPs on the Parliament’s budgets committee entertain over member states’ initial agreement on the EU’s 2012 budget. The Council of Ministers opted on Friday (1 July) for a 2.02% increase – less than half the European Commission’s call for a 4.9% increase in spending. This accord is expected to be formally endorsed by ministers later this month.
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‘Serious’ on austerity
Sidonia Je?drzejewska, a Polish centre-right MEP, said handing the unspent funds back was a demonstration that MEPs were taking the current mood of austerity seriously. But there was unlikely to be a surplus from the 2011 budget, she warned, because the EU was already facing problems in covering aid payments to member states hit by natural disasters. The Parliament and Council have also been unable to find the money for the construction costs of the ITER experimental fusion reactor, estimated at €1.3bn.
“We are headed for difficult negotiations,” said Je?drzejewska, predicting that it would be “close to impossible” for many political groups in the Parliament to accept the Council’s proposal for 2012 – which is below the EU’s current rate of inflation of 3.2%. She fears that such a limited increase would create legal problems for the EU, particularly in meeting payment promises for regional aid projects already under way. Janusz Lewandowski, the European commissioner for financial programming and budget, has already flagged up this risk. The Council envisages increasing cohesion payments by only 5.2% compared to 2011 – in contrast to the Commission proposal of an 8.4% increase.
Potential conflict
Helga Trüpel, a German Green MEP, said the Council’s position would “not realistically meet the commitments” member states made to back agreed policies such as regional aid and climate change. “We will have a real political conflict,” she said.
Anne Jensen, a Danish Liberal MEP, said the Parliament would fight to keep spending high on research, education and jobs.