Translation of "groupe d'examen des prévisions budgétaires " (French → English) :

I'd suggest that we accept the role government has in setting policy and see the estimates process as a vehicle for MPs to apply both their unique skill sets and their unique perspectives to the oversight of government operations within the policy parameters set by the government of the day—in other words, view the estimates and supply process as a study of “how”, not a study of “why”.

As a result, Implementing Decision 2013/463/EU should be updated in the areas of financial sector reform, fiscal policy and structural reforms, in particular with regard to (i) the design of a communication strategy by a joint Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) and Ministry of Finance task force on the roadmap for the relaxation of the capital controls and on the implementation of the banking sector strategy; (ii) the timely reporting of banks’ estimates of the potential impact of the newly introduced and upcoming Union rules on capital requirements and non-performing loans (NPLs) on capital, profitability and coverage ratio; (iii) the estab ...[+++]lishment of a task force to assess the magnitude of registered but untitled land sales contracts, and to provide recommendations on this issue; (iv) the reform of corporate and personal insolvency procedures; (v) the review of the Civil Procedure Code and Court Rules to ensure a smooth and effective functioning of the revised foreclosure and insolvency frameworks; (vi) a revision of the primary deficit target for 2014 to 1,8 % of GDP; (vii) the implementation of a first stage of the National Health System (NHS), having first defined and adopted a full roadmap to NHS; (viii) the revision of policies on pricing and reimbursement of medical goods and services, including those related to pharmaceutical expenditure; (ix) the establishment of a Privatisation Unit; (x) the presentation of an action plan for addressing the shortcoming identified in Phase 2 of the peer review by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes; (xi) the development of a growth strategy based on Cyprus’ competitive advantages to help the Cypriot authorities to kick-starting the economy.

The budgetary impact of the potential activation of the optional additional ceiling would have to be calculated on the basis of updated forecasts on provisioning needs of the Fund at the time of the mid-term review.

Biased and unrealistic macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts can considerably hamper the effectiveness of fiscal planning and consequently impair commitment to budgetary discipline, while transparency and discussion of forecasting methodologies can significantly increase the quality of macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts for fiscal planning.

17. Welcomes the monitoring group exercise conducted by its Committee on Budgets in the course of 2007; hopes that this exercise can continue to contribute to an enhanced level of budgetary monitoring; continues to support the Budget Forecast Alert (BFA) system as a contribution to improving budget implementation; requests that the second BFA document be presented in September, and not October, 2008 so that Parliament may take this document into account in preparing its first reading on the 2009 draft budget;

I'm not for a minute suggesting that the government ought to delegate to parliamentary committees their responsibility for the roll-out of spending, but that the contractual arrangement that can be developed will bring you, as an MP, to the table more interested in doing the job of estimate scrutiny than the present circumstances do, where there is really nothing in it for you.