§ Mr. Mylesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement about the meeting of the European Community Budget Ministers on 22 December arid on subsequent events.
§ Mr. LawsonIn my answer on 19 December—[Vol. 996, c. 473–4]—to a question by my right hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins) I reported to the House on the events at the meeting of budget Ministers on 17 December, and on the amendments subsequently adopted by the European Parliament on 18 December to the 1980 draft supplementary budget No. 2 and to the 1981 draft budget.
I represented Her Majesty's Government at a further meeting of budget Ministers on 22 December which considered the Parliament's amendments. There was a difference of view between member States on their propriety and, after several abortive attempts to reach agreement on a compromise position that might be acceptable to the Parliament, the Council concluded that the Presidency would have to report to the Parliament that their amendments, according to a certain number of delegations, constituted a misuse of the budgetary procedure, and that the Council had not been able to pronounce on them. I made it clear that the United Kingdom was not one of the delegations referred to.
The European Parliament was informed of the outcome of the Council on 23 December. Madame Veil, President of the European Parliament, immediately made a formal declaration adopting both the 1980 supplementary budget and the 1981 budget. On the same day the Commission sent requests to member States to make payments on 2 January 1981 to finance the supplementary budget for 1980, and the first monthly instalment to the 1981 budget. Her Majesty's Government complied with the Commission's requests on 2 January.