As expected, the Council approved on 6 December and the European Parliament approved yesterday the 2013 EU budget, as agreed in the Conciliation Committee on 29 November. The 2013 EU budget is, therefore, considered adopted. Hence, the total payments for the 2013 EU budget will amount to €132.84 billion and the commitments will amount to €150.90 billion. Nevertheless, the member states are likely to be asked to contribute with more money.
If the EU 2013 budget was not adopted at the end of the year, spending would have to be frozen at 2012 levels and the EU institutions would have to live on a month-by-month basis with reduced funding. Obviously, Brussels does not want to work under the system of the "provisional twelfth." But, such outcome would have been welcomed. It is appalling whilst the EU is imposing austerity on Member States, and all Member States are reducing public spending and increasing taxes, Brussels wants to increase its own budget.
This represents an increase of 2.9%, compared to the EU budget for 2012, an increase of 2.4% if we take into account the 2012 amending budgets. Although the 2013 EU budget will be below the €137.9 billion in payments and €151.15 billion in commitments proposed by the European Commission and the European Parliament, it is higher than the budget initially proposed by the Council. Hence, it will be higher that the freeze demanded by the UK Government. It should be stress that because of QMV, the UK Government has not succeeded in ensuring deep cuts to the EU’s 2013 budget. The Government voted against such deal and it could not reach a blocking minority.
It is important to recall that the European Commission has tabled 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. Whereas, unsurprisingly, the European Parliament has endorsed the Commission’s proposal for a €9 billion increase on this year budget, the Council could not agreed on such amount.
Nevertheless, the Council and the European Parliament agreed to add €6 billion to the budget for 2012, instead of the €9bn as initially proposed by the European Commission. Furthermore, “additional redeployments of EUR 100.46 million between various budget lines have been agreed.” However, the €2.9bn gap will have to be filled by the 2013 budget. In fact, Martin Schulz, the president of the Parliament, has made clear that the European Parliament would only approve the 2013 budget if there were guarantees that the 2.9bn would be covered by the EU's member states, adding up to the just agreed budget of €132.84 billion. Hence, according to a European Parliament’s press release “EP President Schulz, Commission President Barroso and Council President Christofias jointly signed three declarations, promising to add fresh money during 2013 as soon as this proves necessary to pay outstanding bills from 2012 or to cover the gap between the level of payments adopted and the estimated needs.”
The European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission agreed that the Commission will “present at an early stage in the year 2013 a draft amending budget devoted to the sole purpose of covering the 2012 suspended claims” and “without prejudice to the proper implementation of the 2013 budget.” The European Parliament and the Council made a commitment to “take position on this draft amending budget as quickly as possible in order to cover any outstanding gap."
Moreover, according to a Joint statement on payment appropriations for 2013, “The European Parliament and the Council are aware that a draft amending budget may possibly be required as early as mid-2013.” It is important to mention that Janusz Lewandowski, Commissioner for financial programming and budget, said "The approved budget will in all likelihood not be sufficient to pay the incoming bills … the pressure on the 2013 EU budget will be tremendous. There is a serious risk that we will run out of funds early in the course of next year". As Richard Ashworth, MEP said, "The EU is like the man in the pub who orders doubles all round and then announces he left his wallet at home.”
