At present the Financial Regulation is silent on the Commission’s responsibilities when preparing new spending proposals (other than Article 49, covering the need for a basic act).

The Court suggests that the Parliament and Council consider whether the Financial Regulations should require the Commission to improve its screening of spending proposals at the time they are put forward, and to improve its diagnosis of the causes of error.

Your rapporteur wishes to underline that clarity of presentation by the Commission of its spending proposals is important for proper scrutiny of spending by the Budgetary Authority.

It is expected that the European Union Member States will receive a refund of some EUR 10 billion from the Amending Budget, meaning that France will be reimbursed some FFR 10 billion. Parliament’s Committee on Budgets is proposing to reimburse the States some EUR 5.5 billion; the remaining EUR 4.5 billion will thus cover the various costs incurred during the current year. We can debate whether or not this is a sound proposal, since Parliament is only supposed to give an opinion on the spending proposals envisaged by the European Commission, none of which have yet been made.

If these proposals were accepted, expenditure would rise to EUR 2.7 billion.

On the substance of the proposals, there was a greater concentration of the co-financed expenditure in the research and development area on a number of key measures.