AGRICULTURE: COMMISSION REGARDS 'NEGATIVE SPENDING' AS ALLOCATED REVENUE.

• Position: Brief Article

The planned reform of the financial Regulation needs to have the unanimous blessing of EU Council of Minister. The Opinion of the European Parliament has to be sought and if the institution's thoughts on the matter are disregarded, it might decide to call for a conciliation procedure to be opened. Euro 1.2-1.6 billion a year.The present level of "negative spending" for the farm sector is put at about Euro 1,200-1,600 million a year (1,576 million in 1999). Currently allocated to the expenditure part of the EU Budget, these amounts are to be shifted to the revenue side. This should boost the amount of appropriations entered for the expenditure part of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund- Guarantee Section (40.994 billion for the 2000 financial year) and result in a similar amount in the case of revenue earmarked for the revenue side of this same Fund. Point 10.2 of the 6 May 1999 Inter-Institutional Agreement on budgetary discipline (Official Journal C 172 of 18/06/1999) states that the financial perspective shall not take account of budget lines funded by allocated revenue, so negative spending converted into allocated revenue may be regarded as neutral for budget purposes.Complex budget system.The fresh deployment of negative expenditure will help guarantee greater openness in the presentation of the budget and asset recording. Resulting from a complicated budgetary mechanism, the amounts fall into five categories:- sums recovered from the discovery of fraudulent activities or irirregularities (Euro 60 million in 1999)- adjustments to advances agreed on the basis of Article 13 of the bubudgetary discipline process (126 million)- "profits" that may result from sales from public storage operations (2(286...