HC Deb 16 February 1995 vol 254 cc746-7W
Mr. Hain

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects the final adopted version of the EU budget for a 15-member Community; and if he will publish figures showing the level of expenditure for 1995 for all 15 members.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory

The 1995 EC budget was adopted by the President of the European Parliament on 15 December 1994 on the basis of 15 member states. It will be published soon in theOfficial Journal.

The total commitments in 1995 amount to 80.9 billion ecu, or £63.8* billion and total payments to 76.5 billion ecu, or £60.4 billion. The budget does not give details of expenditure receipts by member state. *Throughout this reply an exchange rate of £1=1.2675 ecu has been used.

Mr. Hain

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the process of Her Majesty's Treasury's drawing up a supplementary and amending budget which allocates the additional expenditure to the detailed EU budget headings among new member states.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory

The 1995 EC budget which was adopted by the President of the European Parliament on 15 December 1994 includes provision for additional expenditure to take account of enlargement.

The Commission will shortly be proposing a preliminary draft supplementary and amending budget which will allocate the additional expenditure to individual EC budget headings, as necessary. The Government will carefully consider the proposal, which will be subject to the usual parliamentary scrutiny procedure.