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The European Commission has asked for an extra €11.2 billion from the member states to cover invoices for EU funding submitted last year and new spending from the current budget.  

“This cannot come as a surprise,” Janusz Lewandowski, the European commissioner for financial programming and budget, said in Brussels today (27 March). “In recent years, voted EU budgets have been increasingly below the real needs; this is creating a snowballing effect of unpaid claims transferred onto the following year.”  

With the top-up request, Lewandowski believes he we will be able to cover unpaid invoices from last year as well as ongoing programmes, for example under the EU’s cohesion policy, where payments will be due this year.  

The budget for 2013 was adopted in a compromise between MEPs, the Commission and the member states at the end of November after a quarrel about unpaid commitments. It included a provision for Lewandowski to submit a top-up request as soon as feasible. The 2013 budget foresees payments of €132.8bn, some €5bn below what the Commission had asked for. The shortfall was increased by the roll-over into this year of unpaid bills from last year.  

The endorsement of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers is required for the request to be approved. No member state holds veto power over the annual budget and modifications to it.