EU-Budget reserveert geld voor toetreding van Kroatië, het Noord-Ierse vredesproces, en in projecten in Turks-Cyprus (en)

In the months since May, when the Commission launched the draft budget for 2005, the Council has taken several decisions requiring additional expenditure for 2005. The Commission will tomorrow adopt the necessary amendments to the Budget proposals for 2005: € 114 mio to encourage the economic development of the Turkish Cypriot Community; € 105 mio pre-accession aid to Croatia ; € 60 mio to extend the Peace programme for Northern Ireland and the border areas in Ireland. Budget Commissioner Michaele Schreyer said: "The EU will make further significant contributions to a more stable and peaceful Europe with these proposed increases to the budget, which follow Council requests."

Encouraging the economic development of the Turkish Cypriot community

Following the positive vote of the Turkish Cypriot community on the UN settlement proposal, the Council has recommended fostering the economic development in this part of Cyprus, where the acquis is still suspended, with financial assistance of € 259 mio in the years 2004-2006. The Commission launched a proposal for a programme in July with a first tranche of € 6 mio for 2004. For 2005, a second tranche of € 114 million in commitment appropriations (CA) and EUR 26.84 million in payment appropriations (PA) are proposed.

Pre-accession strategy for Croatia

The European Council decided last June to accept Croatia as a candidate country for membership. The Commission has now prepared a legislative proposal to include Croatia as a beneficiary of the pre-accession instruments PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD. Financial assistance to Croatia from the EU budget will be doubled, as was the case for all other countries on being granted candidate status. In 2005, an amount of €105 mio is proposed for the pre-accession programmes PHARE and ISPA. PA for SAPARD will follow from 2006 since it will take time to put in place the fully decentralised implementation structures for SAPARD. The Commission estimates the amount necessary in 2005 in PA at €18.4 million. By financing the support to Croatia from the pre-accession aid the corresponding appropriations originally foreseen under the Cards programme (for countries of the Western Balkan) can be deleted.

Consolidating Peace in Northern Ireland

Based on the assessment of the Council that the peace process in Northern Ireland still requires some financial support from the EU the Commission proposes extending the PEACE programme, initially foreseen to end this year until 2006. €60 million in CA may be made available in 2005. As the Peace II programme will be aligned with other structural actions a revision of the financial perspective will be necessary. The sub-ceiling for structural actions will be increased by the amount of the Peace II programme. However this will be offset by a similar decrease of the sub-ceiling for the cohesion fund where a margin was left for the next two years when Ireland become ineligible for cohesion funding.

The proposed amendments to the preliminary draft budget 2005 following Council's requests total € 214 mio in CA and €35.24 mio for payments.