§ Mr. Spearingasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the estimated cost to the EEC budget of the agreed increase of EEC farm prices in a full year; and what is his latest estimate of the outturn of the EEC budget in 1977 on present commitments.
§ Mr. Robert SheldonThe Commission has not yet informed the Council of the estimated budgetary consequences of the recently agreed increases in EEC agricultural prices and related decisions. However Mr. Tugendhat, the Commissioner for financial affairs, is reported to have said in a recent speech that the cost of these decisions in a full year will be about 1,000 million units of account (£417 million), and will add 248 million units of account (£103 million) to the budget for 1977.
It is not possible to forecast the outturn of the 1977 Community budget; the provision in the budget as adopted totalled 8,800 million units of account (£3,667 million), to which will need to be added the total of a supplementary budget needed to take account of the agricultural price settlement and other factors.