The European Parliament published in the Official Journal of the European Union on July 11th, the second amending budget for the financial year 2008. This document includes the sections corresponding to Agriculture and rural development, Fisheries and maritime affairs, and Regional policy.

According legal provision of the Treaty establishing the European Community and the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, the procedure established for that purpose has been concluded and the amending budget Nº 2 of the European Union for the financial year 2008 has been finally adopted.

The amendments include the general statement of revenue for the Staff section, as well as the statement of revenue and expenditure by section for Section III corresponding to Agriculture and rural development, Fisheries and maritime affairs and Regional policy.

Concerning Title 05 on  Agriculture and rural development, the general objectives of this section include:

• Meeting the requirements of the agricultural sector and the expectations of society, by providing the farming community with a fair standard of living, supplying consumers with food at reasonable prices, and promoting effective use of resources.
• Consolidating rural development policy in order to support sustainable growth and employment, meet the economic, social and environmental challenges and needs of rural Europe,.
• Promoting the European agricultural sector in a changing trade environment and strengthening agricultural competitiveness.

For this purpose the new total amount of Commitments for 2008 is of 54.072,1 M€. In this section, rural development financed by the European Agricultural  Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) (2007 to 2013) will imply 13.296,92M€ of commitment.

Title 11 dedicated to Fisheries and maritime affairs, includes all the activities covered by the common fisheries policy (CFP) which comes under the exclusive competence of the Community. It concerns all fisheries activities as well as the processing and marketing of these products.

In this case, the total amount of commitment for 2008 is 976,3 M€. Sixty per cent of appropriations are devoted to the European Fisheries Fund (EFF). However, the EFF operations are mainly implemented by the Member States as part of shared management.

The policy area covers the following operational activities: common organisation of the fisheries market, relations and agreements with third countries and international organisations, fisheries governance, fisheries research, structural measures for fisheries through the EFF, conservation of fisheries resources, and control and enforcement. Finally, a new activity relates to maritime affairs, with a preparatory action for launching implementation of the European maritime policy.

Finally, Title 13 is dedicated to Regional Policy, whose main objectives include stimulating the growth potential of the least-developed Member States and regions, known as convergence, strengthen regions’ competitiveness and attractiveness as well as their employment capacity by anticipating economic and social changes, promote stronger integration of the territory of the EU to support balanced and sustainable development (European territorial cooperation), ans assist candidate countries as well as potential candidate countries in their progressive alignment with the standards and policies of the European Union (Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, IPA).
 
Amended budget commitment for 2008 is of 36.524,9 M€. In this case 76% of the total budget corresponds to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and  other regional operations.