Europarlementariërs willen meer invloed op uitgaven Europees buitenlands beleid (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Playing some of their last cards in the long negotiating route to setting up the EU's diplomatic service, MEPs on Tuesday (28 September) demanded more control over the Union's foreign policy spending.

Deputies in the budget and budgetary control committees asked for much greater transparency over administrative spending by the diplomatic service's delegations, as well as operational spending for EU missions and delegations.

"Taxpayers have to be correctly informed how much they are spending on European foreign policy", said German centre-right MEP Inge Graessle, one of the deputies charged with steering the debate through parliament.

The demands fit in with longterm complaints by MEPs that they have little oversight on how exactly the EU spends its money in its individual missions.

Speaking before the summer, German Green MEP Franziska Brantner remarked: "It's incredible. There is no budget line for our mission in Somalia. We don't know how much has been spent in Somalia on staff, on building, etc. It's very opaque."

An email leaked early last year concerning the expenditures for the EU's monitoring mission in Georgia revealed confusion over how much may be spent on renting and transporting armoured vehicles and saw member states put in cost estimates for items that were considered non-reimbursable.

Member states, for their part, have been wary of letting the European Parliament getting too much of a foot in the foreign policy door, pointing out either that the EU treaty does not foresee a role for the assembly in this area or arguing that MEPs will politicise the policy.

However, the parliament has the right to budgetary control over the diplomatic service and will formally have to sign off its budget each year.

In addition, before the diplomatic service is finally set up - something slated for 1 December - MEPs must agree to changes to the financial and staff rules.

These two requirements have given the parliament its strong bargaining position since the negotiations on the service began in earnest at the beginning of the year.

Aside from greater oversight into foreign policy spending, MEPs are also demanding that the heads of the EU's over 130 delegations all have budget training and can be hauled before parliament for questioning if needed.

They also want the European Development Fund, controlled and funded by member states, to be subject to MEPs' budget scrutiny.

The legal affairs committee is due to finalise its requests related to staff on 6 October with a final vote in plenary on both the financial and staff rules scheduled for late next month (18-21 October).

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton i, who has several times met with MEPs to thrash out the details of the service, has put political capital on the new body being set up in by the beginning of December - exactly one year after the EU's new treaty came into force.

However, one official working in the council, the member states' secretariat, remained doubtful that the goal would be achieved.

"The general assumption here is that initially the EEAS [diplomatic service] will exist on paper only. Staff will remain in their current offices in Council and Commission buildings. The most pressing problem will be where to put the newly recruited staff," suggested the official.