Documents

The Activity Statements constitute the main instrument for justifying the appropriations requested by the Commission in the Draft Budget.

These Statements provide details on the resources that are dedicated to the Activities, as well as on associated objectives, indicators, targets and outputs. They also include relevant evaluation results of EU interventions.

The document presents Activity Statements for each Policy Area according to the budget nomenclature. Each statement has the same structure and includes the following elements:

• numerical data related to the Activity;
• EU added value of the Activity; and performance
• information and proposed appropriations.

Amending Budget (AB) No 1 for the year 2012 concerns the financing of ITER, and incorporates into the 2012 Budget, the amount of EUR 650 million in commitment appropriations, onto budget article 08 20 02 Euratom – European Joint Undertaking for ITER – Fusion for Energy (F4E), in accordance with the agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council in December 2011.

Adopted by the Commission on 16 March 2012 (COM(2012)125), amended by the Council on 15 May 2012 and approved by the European Parliament on 12 June 2012.

Amending Budget (AB) No 2 for the year 2012 covers the mobilisation of the EU Solidarity Fund for an amount of EUR 18 061 682 in commitment and payment appropriations relating to flooding in Italy (Liguria and Tuscany) in October 2011.

The Amending Budget (AB) No 3/2012 is intended to budget the surplus resulting from the implementation of the budget year 2011. As provided for in the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities , under Article 15 § 3, it is the only subject of this AB and it has to be submitted within 15 days following the submission of the provisional accounts, which took place on 31 March 2012.

The implementation of the budget year 2011 shows a surplus of EUR 1 496 968 014 (not including contributions from European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and European Economic Area (EEA)), which is therefore entered as revenue in the 2012 budget.

Amending Budget (AB) No 4 for the year 2012 concerns the following:

• A revision of the forecast of Traditional Own Resources (TOR, i.e. customs duties and sugar sector levies), VAT and GNI bases, the budgeting of the relevant UK corrections as well as their financing and revision of financing of GNI reductions in favour of the Netherlands and Sweden in 2012, resulting in a change in the distribution between Member States of their own resources contributions to the EU budget,
• The creation of four new budget lines for the implementation of risk-sharing instruments financed from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund, all with a token entry (p.m.),
• Modification of the budget line 16 03 05 01 – Preparatory action – EuroGlobe to replace the "dash" for payments on the line with a token entry (p.m.), in order to allow the final payments to be made.

Amending Budget (AB) No 5 for the year 2012 concerns the following:

• Mobilisation of the EU Solidarity Fund for an amount of EUR 670 192 359 in commitment and payment appropriations relating to the series of earthquakes in Emilia-Romagna, Italy in May 2012.
• Modification of the budget line 16 05 03 01 – Preparatory action – European Year of Volunteering 2011 to replace the "dash" for payments on the line with a token entry (p.m.), in order to allow the final payments to be made.

Amending Budget (AB) No 6 for the year 2012 concerns the following:

• the usual update in the forecast of revenue after the latest revision of the forecasts of own resources and other revenue;
• an increase of payment appropriations of nearly EUR 6,0 billion across headings 1a, 1b, 2, 3a and 4 of the multi-annual financial framework, with the aim of meeting outstanding needs to the end of the year, so that commitments can be honoured, financial penalties avoided, and beneficiaries can receive the funds envisaged by the agreed EU policies, for which the commitments were authorised in previous annual budgets. The Commission has identified some sources of redeployment for a total of EUR 147,9 million;
• a reduction in the level of commitment appropriations in the budget of EUR 142,2 million, to take account of the latest state of implementation and revised assessments of real needs to the year end.

The Commission publishes a budgetary implementation report every month, which is transmitted to the budgetary authority (Council of the European Union and European Parliament) and to the Court of Auditors. This report describes the evolution of budgetary credits. It includes information amassed at the level of Financial Perspectives, summarizing the data concerning commitment appropriations and payment appropriations.

Budgetary implementation also forms part of the annual financial statement that the Commission must present for control to the Parliament and the Court of Auditors.