The European parliament has rejected plans to cut the draft 2017 EU budget. The budget committee voted in favour of a proposed budget amounting to €161.8bn in commitments, €4.13bn more than the original Commission proposal, saying the EU needed to increase funding to fight youth unemployment and increased spending on research and infrastructure projects
There will now be a full plenary vote on the plans in late October, followed by three weeks of negotiations with the aim of agreeing the budget in December.
MEPs said they expect the additional €4.13bn to be financed in part via new appropriations to be obtained through the ongoing mid-term revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
‘Council and Parliament agree that the EU budget should prioritise the migration crisis and boost jobs and growth, so the Council is acting inconsistently by proposing further cuts to an already underfinanced budget. We have corrected that’, said lead budget rapporteur Jens Geier, an S&D from Germany, after the vote.
MEPs increased the Youth Employment Initiative by an additional €1.5bn in commitment appropriations and €500m in payment appropriations. They also fully restored the budgets of the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), which funds infrastructure projects, and the Horizon 2020 programme, which backs research projects. Both programmes had faced cuts as part of measures to help finance the EU guarantee for the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI).
