Some ministers raised doubts about the Commission's proposal to create further instruments outside the financial framework (such as a new reserve fund for crises in the agricultural sector or a fund for ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), in addition to the existing ones (European development fund, solidarity fund, flexibility instrument, emergency aid reserve and European globalisation fund).

2. The resources of the reserve fund shall be so invested as to be available at any time to meet the purpose of the fund.

The capital requirements for positions in CIUs which meet the conditions specified in Article 11 for a trading book capital treatment shall be calculated in accordance with the methods set out in points 48 to 56.

Until amounts from the reserve fund are actually transferred to the Consolidated Revenue Fund each year, they are not available to the Crown for general appropriations (1105) Although the parliamentary secretary acknowledged that the reserve fund is not part of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, he did argue that because monies from the reserve fund are integrated into the Consolidated Revenue Fund on an annual basis they may be considered to form part of the general revenues under the control of the Crown.

The report also reflected other concerns: taking account of other indicators than GDP to determine eligibility for Structural Fund assistance; improve the consistency of employment policy, the common agricultural policy, environmental policy, transport policy and economic policy with a view to sustainable regional development; increasing the administrative capacity of the applicant countries; defining the more flexible methods of implementing assistance with a view to gradual decentralisation of the management of the Funds, subject to effective and rigorous monitoring; raising the assistance for regional competitiveness; allowing th ...[+++]e regions to implement their own development strategies; introducing the principle "one programme - one Fund", by giving more responsibility to the regions for implementation.

It was not necessary that the balance of the fund be positive at any particular time (section 6(4) of the Act); the balance of the fund was not to exceed $100 million (section 2(3) of the regulations); and deductions were not allowed from amounts received by the corporation (to be credited to the contingency fund) if, as a result of deducting those amounts and crediting them to the fund, a loss would be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament (section 2(2) of the regulations).