To finance the economic recovery plan, €2.4 billion will have to be found in the 2010 EU budget. Parliament backs the plan but is refusing to let it be funded at the expense of other policy priorities. This is one of the issues in the budget negotiations between Parliament and Council that began on 10 July.

 While Parliament wants a budget geared towards urgent needs in a time of crisis, the Council is focusing purely on the accounting side, believes MEP László Surján (EPP, HU), Parliament's general rapporteur on the EU budget.  "In a crisis, our priority should be the security of our citizens. First, job security of course but also security on the EU's external frontiers and measures to combat climate change. We have the instruments but we also need a budget focused on objectives.  And that's the key difference between the approaches of Parliament and the Council, which has chosen to concentrate purely on accounting aspects and budget cuts rather than the political goals", he said.

Payments and implementation of the budget

The preliminary draft budget presented by the Commission envisages figures of €138 563 546 962 in commitments and €122 322 206 410 in payments for 2010.  The Member States want to reduce these figures by 613 million and 1.8 billion respectively.
 
The parliamentary delegation is concerned at the low level of implementation of the 2009 budget, in particular Headings 3 (citizenship, freedom, security and justice), 1a (competitiveness) and 5 (administration).  The Commission must submit to Parliament, before the end of August (and hence just before the parliamentary hearing of the new budget Commissioner), the justifications for the delays in implementing these programmes.

External relations and cohesion

Parliament's delegation was surprised that the Council's draft budget proposes a figure of 0 euros for emergency aid. MEPs repeated their concern regarding the chronic under-funding of Heading 4 (The EU as a Global Actor). They believe that additional needs will require the budget to be adjusted subsequently and they say, in a unilateral declaration, that this adjustment should be preceded by a multiannual assessment of needs in this area, to be conducted by the Commission.

As to the economic recovery plan (with a total figure of €5bn), MEPs stressed that €2.4bn must be included in the 2010 budget without other priorities, notably competitiveness and cohesion, suffering as a result.

Administrative expenditure and multilingualism

Parliament's delegation did not oppose the limits proposed by the Council in Heading 5 (Administration) but emphasised that administrative expenditure, in terms of human resources, should be re-evaluated in the light of the needs created by new political commitments.  And spending cuts must not undermine the policy of multilingualism, which remains a priority for Parliament.