Amending Budget No 1/2021

Commission's proposal: Draft Amending Budget 2/2021, COM(2021) 200 – 24 March 2021
Council's position: 23 April 2021
Parliament's position: 18 May 2021

The purpose of Amending Budget (AB) No 1 for the year 2021 is to provide additional funding for the prevention, preparedness and response to the COVID-19 pandemic as proposed in the Commission Communications on the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) Incubator, COVID-19: a common path to safe and sustained re-opening and the Digital Green Certificates, and to provide room under the Emergency Support Instrument for the potential budgetary impact of further European initiatives related to the COVID-19 response. Moreover, the AB introduces the necessary technical changes to the 2021 budget stemming from the political agreements reached on sectoral legal bases following the adoption of the multiannual financial framework (MFF) in December 2020, as well as some adjustments in relation to the provisioning for the External Action Guarantee.

In particular, it covers the following elements:

• Reinforcement of the Emergency Support Instrument and of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in the context of the COVID-19 response, for a total amount of EUR 216,2 million in commitment and EUR 208,1 million in payment appropriations.
• Budgetary neutral adjustments:
  • resulting from the adoption of the Commission implementing decision of 12 February 2021 establishing the new generation of executive agencies, and the corresponding Commission delegating decisions setting out the major components of the mandate and tasks entrusted to them,
  • resulting from the adoption of the Commission proposal for a Council Regulation establishing the Joint Undertakings under Horizon Europe of 23 February 2021, setting out the major components of the mandate and contribution to EU priorities of the new European partnerships as from 2021;
  • to the planned amounts from NextGenerationEU (NGEU) for 2021 by programme and budget line, to reflect the impact of the finalisation of the legal bases of the programmes that will benefit from NGEU top-ups including REACT-EU;
  • to increase the provisioning of the European Fund for Sustainable Development (EFSD+) in 2021 by EUR 700 million in commitment appropriations, to be compensated by a corresponding decrease in later years of the 2021-2027 period;
• Other adjustments and technical updates:
  • adjustment of the establishment plans of the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), as well as reinforcement of the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) by EUR 2 million and corresponding adjustment of its establishment plan, taking into account the impact of the latest legislative or political developments on their operations for 2021;
  • a correction to the 2021 level of appropriations of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), following the adoption of EESC budgetary authority transfer DEC1/2020 in 2020, which prefinanced building expenditure originally foreseen for 2021 for an amount of EUR 5,5 million in commitment and payment appropriations.

Additionally, taking into account the provisions under Article 10 (1) of the 2014-2020 MFF Regulation, it is proposed to carry-over to the EUSF budget line in 2021 an amount of EUR 47 981 598 in both commitment and payment appropriations, corresponding to the unused portion of 2020 appropriations.

Overall, the net impact of this AB on expenditure in the 2021 budget is an amount of EUR 260 681 598 in commitment and EUR 252 581 598 in payment appropriations.