EU budget talks to restart with proposal by Commission

At the meeting on 17 November the Council and the European Parliament agreed that further discussions were needed for the two institutions to reach agreement on the EU budget for 2015 and on ways to address the outstanding payments in the 2014 budget.

"The conciliation talks allowed us to narrow down the gap between our positions which should allow us to continue the talks on the basis of a fresh Commission proposal," said Italy's State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Finance Enrico Zanetti.

The 21-day conciliation period during which the Council and the European Parliament had to reach agreement on next year's budget expired on 17 November, and the European Commission will have to submit a new proposal on the 2015 budget.

If the Council and the European Parliament do not reach an agreement until the beginning of 2015, the system of 'provisional twelfths' will apply: each month, for each chapter of the budget, a sum not larger than one twelfth of the 2014 budget appropriations, or of the draft budget proposed by the Commission, whichever is smaller, could be spent.

The 2014 EU budget, as adopted, contains €135.50 billion in payment appropriations and €142.64bn in commitment appropriations.

The two institutions had diverging positions on several key issues, including the question of how to deal with the unpaid bills for 2014. During the talks the Council agreed that the contingency margin could be used for financing the outstanding payments from 2014.

The contingency margin is a new mechanism provided for in the regulation on the multiannual financial framework for 2014-2020, and is to be used as a last resort instrument. It would increase the MFF payment ceiling for the current year, and would then offset this increase by a corresponding decrease in the MFF payment ceilings for the following years.

For the 2015 EU budget the Council proposed to define the level of appropriations so as to take account of the budgetary constraints faced by the member states, with a focus on measures that promote growth and jobs.

The Council proposed that the total level of payments would amount to €140.77bn, an increase of 3.9% compared to the 2014 budget. A proposed increase in payments for activities such as research, innovation and education amounted to 26.6% or €3bn. The Parliament proposed an increase in payments of 8.1% (taking the total to €146.42bn). The total proposed level of commitment appropriations was €144.63bn, 1.4% higher than in 2014.

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