Vergadering Europese ministers van Economische Zaken (ECOFIN) over voorlopige begroting EU (en)
The Economic and Financial Affairs Council is meeting on Thursday 17 July in Brussels, under the presidency of Eric Woerth, the French Minister for the Budget, Public Accounts and the Civil Service.
This Council will address the adoption of a draft budget for the European Union. It will gather the Ministers for the Budget from the 27 Member States of the European Union and the Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite responsible for Financial Programming and Budget. It will begin at 10am and should end after lunch.
This Council is a key step in the Community budget procedure. Each year, the European Commission sends a Preliminary Draft Budget (PDB) presenting the expenditure proposals of all the European Union's institutions. For 2009, this PDB authorises EUR 134.4 billion of commitments, i.e. 1.04% of EU Gross National Income (GNI) (up by 3.3% compared with 2008), and EUR 116.7 billion of actual payments, i.e. 0.90% of EU GNI (down by 3.3% compared with 2008). This PDB is in line with financial forecasts, i.e. the European Union's multiannual financial framework which sets expenditure ceilings applying annually to the budget for the 2007-2013 period.
During this initial reading of the Preliminary Draft Budget, the Presidency of the ECOFIN Council (Budget) must have a compromise reached on a draft budget that is traditionally lower than the amounts proposed by the European Commission and which will be sent to the European Parliament. The Council also consults a delegation of the European Parliament chaired by the President of the Committee on Budgets which gives its reactions to the compromise reached by the Council.
The discussions between the two branches of the budgetary authority (Council of the European Union and European Parliament), each of which is competent in an expenditure category, are continued in the autumn with a view to adopting a budget of the European Union that must be balanced.