Brussels, 13/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - Although the budget allocated to the new European programmes on education, youth, culture and media (“Erasmus for All” and “Creative Europe”) will increase in relation to current levels - according to the agreement reached on 8 February by the European Council on the 2014-2020 multiannual financial framework - the increase that is planned is well below what the European Commission and European Parliament were hoping for. In a tweet at the end of the negotiations on Friday, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth Androulla Vassiliou said: “The heads of state and government should have been looking forward and not backwards if they really want growth”.
The European Council plans to increase the budget for “Erasmus for All” by 40% and that of “Creative Europe” by only 12% - when the cultural and creative industries are “a high contributor to jobs and growth”, Vassiliou deplores. For the new programme on education and youth, the budget proposed by the Commission would have enabled nearly 5 million people to benefit from European funding to study, to train or to learn abroad. According to the agreement negotiated by the Council, this number will drop to 4 million, Vassiliou continues. She now hopes that the Parliament will revise the amounts upwards in the future negotiations with the Council. “The agreement reached by the member states is an important step towards a final budget decision but it is by no means the last step (…) In the meantime, the Commission will take into account this new budget allocation proposal and come up with suggestions how the available funds could be concretely divided among the funding programmes”, Vassiliou said. (IL/transl.fl)