3. Funding for established EU cultural
activities
| (24624)
10304/03
COM(03) 275
| Draft Council Decision establishing a Community action programme to promote bodies active at European level in the field of culture.
|
| Legal base | Article 151 EC; co-decision; QMV
|
| Document originated | 27 May 2003
|
| Deposited in Parliament | 17 June 2003
|
| Department | Culture, Media and Sport
|
| Basis of consideration | EM of 4 July 2003
|
| Previous Committee Report | None
|
| To be discussed in Council | November 2003 Education, Youth and Culture Council
|
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information requested
|
Background
3.1 The Activity-Based Budgeting Regulation adopted in June 2002
requires basic Acts to be adopted for a number of grants which
were previously financed under appropriations in Part A (administrative
appropriations) of the Commission section of the budget.
The draft Council Decision
3.2 For several years, financial support has been provided for
what the Commission describes as "bodies active at European
level in the field of culture" and for related actions, under
Part A of the Commission's budget, as follows:
- Heading A-3015 co-finances the operating costs of the European
Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages and the Mercator information
and documentation centres;
- Heading A-3035 contributes to European and international
preservation of Nazi concentration camp sites as historical memorials;
and
- Heading A-3042 co-finances the operating costs
of organisations of European cultural interest. These bodies are
organisations or networks which promote European culture and cooperation
and make a contribution to cultural life and the management of
cultural activities.
3.3 The first two of these are self-explanatory.
The main activities of the organisations supported under the third
are:
- representing stakeholders at
Community level;
- disseminating information on Community action;
and
- networking at European level of bodies active
in the cultural field.
3.4 Applications for operating grants will be assessed
in the light of:
- the quality of the planned
activities;
- the European added value;
- the nature of the planned activities and their
visibility ; and
- the representativeness of the bodies.
Grants will be awarded on the basis of a work programme
approved by the European Commission.
The Government's view
3.5 The former Minister for the Arts at the Department
for Culture, Media and Sport (Estelle Morris) commented:
"The proposal has no impact on UK domestic policy.
These activities have been supported by EU funds for some time.
"However, the move to activity based budgeting
has led the Commission to bring forward this proposal. The Financial
Regulation which brings this about requires each operational area
of expenditure to be underpinned by an appropriate legal base.
In addition each budget line is required to have clearly defined
objectives and outputs and a relationship between the outputs
and the proposed resources. This will allow Member States to
examine more closely the added value of these activities.
"The wording of the draft proposal does not
meet the requirements of the Financial Regulation and we intend,
through the negotiations in Council Working Group, to encourage
clearly defined and measurable objectives, a definition of desired
outputs and their relationship with the policy objectives, regular
reporting against objectives and a systematic evaluation of the
activity. We will also be pressing for the establishment of a
management committee to oversee the programme and the work of
the executive agency appointed to run it."
3.6 On the financial implications, the Minister commented
that the proposal is for a budget of €30.92 million to cover
the period 2004-2008. She said:
"We believe that this proposal should end in
2006 to allow Member States to review the value of the expenditure
and to take a decision on whether it should continue. We also
believe that agreeing to commitments beyond 2006 will prejudice
negotiations over the next Financial Perspective and that this
should be avoided if possible."
Conclusion
3.7 The Statement makes no case for covering two
Financial Perspectives. We agree with the Minister's reasons
for resisting this aspect of the proposal.
3.8 We are surprised that the Commission has issued
a draft Decision, the wording of which does not appear to meet
the requirements of the Regulation. We ask the Government to
explain how, in its view, the Commission is able to draft and
issue a draft Decision which fails to meet the requirements of
its parent Regulation, and if the Government is satisfied that
the Commission has adequate internal procedures in place for draft
legislation to be checked before publication.
3.9 We ask the Government to bring us up to date
on progress in the Council Working Group for consideration in
October and, meanwhile, shall hold the document under scrutiny.
| 
