The Conciliation Committee did not reach an agreement on the 2013 budget before the deadline. The European Parliament and the Council failed to reach an agreement on the 2013 EU budget and other elements of the negotiation package, namely draft amending budget no 6 for 2012.
The European Commission has tabled a draft amending budget no 6 for 2012 to fill a gap of €9 billion between the payments foreseen in the current budget and the commitments in areas such as research, the Erasmus student exchange programme and EU social and development funds. The EU Member States have therefore been asked to pay further contributions to make up for shortfalls in this year’s EU budget. Unsurprisingly, the European Parliament has endorsed the Commission’s proposal for a €9 billion increase on this year budget, but the Council could not agreed on such amount.
According to the Council “the European Parliament refused to negotiate on the 2013 EU budget and set an agreement on draft amending budget 6 for 2012 as a precondition.” Whereas the Council wants to discuss all elements of the package simultaneously the European Parliament insisted on an agreement on draft-amending budget for 2012 before discussing the 2013 budget. As the Member States could not agreed on the 2012 outstanding balance, the European Parliament refused to attend the negotiations on the draft 2013 budget.
Although the Council has reduced the amount of the Commission proposed draft budget there is still an increase of 2.79% compared to 2012. The Council has agreed to a budget of EUR 132.70 billion in payments and EUR 149.78 billion in commitments. Compared to 2012, whereas the European Commission has proposed an increase of €3,031.5 in commitments appropriations and €9 billion in payments appropriations, the Council's position provides for an increase of EUR 1.88 billion and EUR 3.61 billion respectively. The Council has therefore called for reducing the payments by a total of EUR 5.23 billion and the commitments by EUR 1.15 billion.
The European Parliament rejected the cuts made by the Council, and restored funding lines as proposed by the European Commission. The European Parliament proposed a total of €137.9 billion in payments and €151.15 billion in commitments. The MEPs proposed, therefore, an increase in payments of 6.82% as compared to 2012's budget and an increase of commitments of 2.2%, requiring even more money from taxpayers.
Since the 21 days conciliation period, provided in the Treaty, has
expired, the Commission had to put forward a new draft budget for 2013. The European Commission has recently tabled a new draft budget for 2013, and proposed €151 billion in commitments appropriations and €137.8 billion in payment appropriations.
It is important to note that initially the European Commission proposed for 2013 €150.9 billion in commitments appropriations that represents an increase of 2% comparing to the 2012 budget, and €137.9 billion in payments appropriations, which represents an increase of €9 billion or 6.8% on the 2012 budget. Hence, one can easily conclude that both proposals are basically the same. The Commission has not made any cuts to its original proposal.
It should be stress that because of QMV, the UK Government is no succeeding in ensuring deep cuts to the EU’s 2013 budget. If the EU 2013 budget is not approved before the end of the year, spending would have to be frozen at 2012 levels. And, Brussels would have to work under the system of the "provisional twelfth." It is, therefore, essential for the UK Government to achieve a blocking minority.
