BUDGET: COMMISSION STRUGGLES TO GET MEPS TO ACCEPT PRIORITIES.

The main stumbling block for MEPs in the discussions on the Preliminary Draft Budget for 2003 is clearly the question of whether to use the flexibility instrument to increase up the amount of resources for administrative spending to accommodate the staffing and buildings needs of various institutions in the run-up to enlargement. This was the picture which emerged from a debate on May 14, during the European Parliament's latest plenary session, to consider the Draft Budget for 2003. The European Commission is calling for an additional 500 temporary appointments in 2003. The proposal by Commissioner Michaele Schreyer (European Report 2680) has been slammed by the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets, G?ran F?rm (PES, Sweden). He reckons more pressure has to be piled on the Secretaries-General of the institutions as part of the cost-cutting drive.Although the Commission's Preliminary Draft Budget is based on provisional figures that are rising, the Council is considering a new report by the secretariat-general, which in the final analysis shows the possibility of sticking to the amounts set out in the financial perspectives decided at the March 1999 Berlin Summit as part of the Agenda 2000 programme. In the light of a report by Per Stenmark (EPP, Sweden) on the provisional status of its...