By Mark Smulian | 25 September 2013

An additional €3.9bn is needed by the European Commission to cover outstanding payments due to member states from last year, after the European Parliament cut the EU budget for 2013.

This is based on updated estimates for payments in cohesion policy which also show, the commission said, that the 2013 budget will not allow the EU to reimburse beneficiaries of its programmes, mainly for completed cohesion projects. 

Budget commissioner Janusz Lewandowski said: ‘Time and again in the past few years I have warned that the voted EU budgets are well below the legitimate claims of EU beneficiaries. 

‘We see the result today as estimates of upcoming claims validated by member states themselves clearly show that we need additional funds to meet our legal obligations towards beneficiaries of EU funds, mainly national, regional and local authorities who await reimbursements for EU funded projects they have completed at home.’

The EU budget for 2013 was set €5bn below the commission's proposal and €2.9bn below the final level of payments in the 2012 budget, which the commission said created ‘a very tight situation for payments as from early 2013’, not least as the 2013 budget had to accommodate a backlog of payments created in 2012.