Policy Challenges Committee elects chair, vice-chairs and rapporteur

Source: European Parliament (EP) i, published on Thursday, July 8 2010, 12:34.

A new special committee on policy challenges, which is to prepare Parliament's work on the EU's next long-term budget, elected Jutta Haug (S&D, DE) as chair and Salvador Garriga Polledo (EPP, ES) as rapporteur at its inaugural meeting on Thursday. The committee is to report next year, before the start of negotiations on the next long-term budget.

The special committee's first meeting was opened by Reimer Böge (EPP, DE), as the longest-serving MEP.

As chair, the committee unanimously elected Ms Jutta Haug (S&D, DE), a Budgets Committee member since 1994 and its first vice-chair since last year's European Parliament elections. "Thank you for this broad support. I hope we will able to stay this united all the way to the adoption of the final report in plenary. If we can do that, we have a real chance to be strong in the upcoming negotiations. The Council would then realise that our report is not just the opinion of a few, but supported by a strong majority. As members of this committee, we are going to have a lot of work. But I think it will be worth it, since the work is about the future of the whole European Union.", Ms Haug said.

The Policy Challenges Committee also unanimously elected four vice-chairs: Anne Jensen (ALDE, DK), Jan Olbrycht (EPP, PL), Konrad Szymanski (ECR, PL) and Helga Trüpel (Greens/EFA, DE).

Salvador Garriga Polledo (EPP, ES), the EPP co-ordinator in the Budgets Committee, was nominated rapporteur for a report that the Policy Challenges Committee is to issue next year.

The new committee, which will hold its first working meeting at the start of September, is to prepare Parliament's work on the EU's next long-term budget framework (also known as the "financial perspective" or multi-annual financial framework, MFF), which starts in 2014. The current long-term budget framework covers 2007-2013.

The committee's key tasks are to:

  • - 
    define Parliament's priorities for the EU's next long-term budget framework, in both political and budgetary terms,
  • - 
    estimate how much money the EU will need to achieve its objectives,
  • - 
    define the duration of the next long-term budget framework (this has traditionally been seven years but MEPs want to adjust it to match the mandates of the Parliament and the Commission),
  • - 
    propose a structure for future long-term budget frameworks,
  • - 
    draw up guidelines on  how  resources should be distributed within and between different parts ("headings") of the EU budget, and
  • - 
    specify the link between a reform of the EU's financing system and a review of expenditure, so as to provide the Budgets Committee with a basis for the forthcoming MFF negotiations.

The Policy Challenges Committee will present the results of its work in a report, to be approved by Parliament before July 2011, when the Commission is to present its proposal for the next MFF.

In the chair :

Jutta Haug (S&D, DE)

Reimer Böge (EPP, DE)

Further information :

Read more ...