BUDGET: EP PRESIDENT CALLS FOR WORK TO START ON 2007 BUDGET.

The EP President said it was important to put on pressure to get a deal on the medium-term financial perspective. He warned that if there was no agreement, the Parliament would push for the maximum rate of annual increase in the budget as provided for in Article 272 of the EU Treaty.

However, Janusz Lewandowski (EPP-ED, Poland), Chairman of the EPs Committee on Budgets, warned that setting budgets on an annual basis, rather than multi-annually through a financial perspective, had "disadvantages" for regional policy, especially as the new member states were concerned because it provided much less long-term predictability about future funding. "The second scenario of going through the Treaty is second best. Even it gives a few 100 million more, it creates uncertainty in localities", he said. The financial perspective was created to ensure budgetary...