We have with us Michelle d'Auray, Secretary of the Treasury Board; Mr. Bill Matthews, assistant secretary, expenditure management; Christine Walker, chief financial officer and assistant secretary; and Sally Thornton, executive director, expenditure operations and estimates.

45. Strongly supports the EEAS's four main initiatives for smart savings; asks the EEAS to provide an implementing report which shows the financial results and how money saved this way was reused; requests that the Commission also adopt these initiatives;

as appropriate, from a scientific perspective, establish positions on implementation and management of calls for proposals, evaluation criteria, peer review processes including the selection of experts, the methods for peer review and proposal evaluation and the necessary implementing rules and guidelines, on the basis of which the proposal to be funded will be determined under the supervision of the Scientific Council; as well as any other matter affecting the achievements and impact of the ERC's activities, and the quality of the research carried out, including the principal ...[+++] provisions of the ERC Model Grant Agreement;

8. Rejects the Council's argument that the proposed cuts correspond to under-implemented or low-performing programmes, since Council's cuts in commitments affect mostly the implementation capacity of a new generation of multiannual programmes which have not yet started; furthermore, Council's cuts in payments affect mostly the completion of programmes that have shown not only good implementation rates but even over-implementation (e.g. the Common Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation, Galileo, Customs and Fiscalis under Heading 1a, ESF, ERDF and the Cohesion Fund under Heading 1b); emphasises in particular that such cuts in p ...[+++]ayment appropriations completely disregard the multiannual character of the Union's policies, and of cohesion policy in particular; underlines the fact that 52 % of the payment appropriations requested in the 2014 draft budget are devoted to the completion of programmes under the 2007 - 2013 MFF;

8. Rejects the Council's argument that the proposed cuts correspond to under-implemented or low-performing programmes, since Council's cuts in commitments affect mostly the implementation capacity of a new generation of multiannual programmes which have not yet started; furthermore, Council's cuts in payments affect mostly the completion of programmes that have shown not only good implementation rates but even over-implementation (e.g. the Common Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation, Galileo, Customs and Fiscalis under Heading 1a, ESF, ERDF and the Cohesion Fund under Heading 1b); emphasises in particular that such cuts in p ...[+++]ayment appropriations completely disregard the multiannual character of the Union's policies, and of cohesion policy in particular; underlines the fact that 52% of the payment appropriations requested in the 2014 draft budget are devoted to the completion of programmes under the 2007 - 2013 MFF;

Sherry Harrison, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director, Corporate Services Branch;