General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2003.

Abstract

The general budget for 2003 was adopted on 19 December 2002 after Parliament's second reading. The budget as adopted totals € 99 686 million for commitments and € 97 503 million for payments. Compared with 2002, commitment appropriations remain at roughly the same level (an increase of 0.3 %), just below the € 100 billion mark. This 2003 budget will finance all the traditional priorities and prepare the ground for enlargement. It complies with the new Financial Regulation adopted in June 2002. Appropriations for payments rise by a modest 1.9 96, but, in view of the very small increase in appropriations for commitments, this demonstrates the determination of budgetary authority and Commission alike to tackle the problem of outstanding commitments still awaiting payment. The budget also reflects the consolidation efforts being made by Member States with their national budgets. Because of the very tight grip on budget growth, a substantial margin of € 5 435 million in payments and € 2 629 in commitments is left beneath the ceilings set in the financial perspective. Appropriations for agricultural expenditure rise by 1.2 % to €44 780 million, leaving a substantial margin of € 2 597 million beneath the ceiling. The traditional letter of amendment in autumn proposed a cut of € 337.4 million in the expenditure entered by the Commission in its preliminary draft, and this was accepted by the budgetary authority in a single reading. These savings are the net result of large increases in certain sectors offset by reductions in others. Adjustments to the EUR-USD exchange rate have caused some increases. The letter of amendment also made two changes to the nomenclature, inserting a line to identify export refunds for live cattle and transferring the line for genetic resources to the 'internal policies' heading of the financial perspective. The amount in the 200 3 budget for rural development is the maximum possible, but the letter of amendment changed the distribution between countries in the preliminary draft in order to reflect the Member States' programmes.