Brussels, 10/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 9 April, the European Commission forwarded to the secretariat general of the Council a table featuring a list of all the programmes for the period 2014-2020 which have been adjusted on the basis of the conclusions of the European Council of 7-8 February. At this meeting, the EU leaders reached an agreement on the forthcoming multi-annual financial framework (MFF) of the EU and this table aims to facilitate current negotiations on this issue between the Council and the European Parliament.
The table is more detailed than the one published after the European Council of 7-8 February, providing for a total budget for the EU in commitments of €134.3 billion in 2014, €135.3 billion in 2015, €136.0 billion in 2016, €137.1 billion in 2017, €137.8 billion in 2018, €139.0 in 2019 and €140.2 billion in 2020. The total over seven years is €959.98 billion in commitments (€908.4 billion in payments). The table shows the distribution of the funds for each year within the various headings:
1a competitiveness: there are a total of €70 billion over seven years for “horizon 2020” (€8.5 billion in 2014 rising to €11.6 billion in 2020), €13 billion for Erasmus (€1.3 billion in 2014 and up to €2.4 billion in 2020), and €19.3 billion (plus €10 from the structural funds) for the Connecting Europe Facility.
1b cohesion: notably, €164.2 billion have been earmarked over seven years for regional coherence (rising from €22.2 billion in 2014 to €24.4 billion in 2020), and €66.3 billion for the Cohesion Fund.
2 natural resources: agricultural expenditure will drop from €43.1 billion in 2013 to €41.5 in 2014 and will then fall to €37.6 billion in 2020. Rural development funds will fall from €13.8 billion in 2013 to €11.4 billion in 2020. For the environment and climate, the envelope will rise from €352.4 million in 2013 to €486.3 million in 2020.
3 security and citizenship: €3.3 billion has been earmarked for the internal security fund and €2.7 billion for asylum and the migration fund.
4 external action: the development cooperation instrument has an envelope of €17.3 billion, ahead of the neighbourhood policy (€13.6 billion) and the pre-accession instrument (€10.5 billion).
A total of €26.9 billion (outside the EU budget) has been earmarked for the European development fund (from €2.9 billion in 2014 to €4.1 billion in 2020, compared to €3 billion in 2013).
In addition, Coreper (committee of permanent representatives of the member states to the EU) discussed two technical texts on Wednesday 10 April: a draft regulation on the MFF 2014-2020 and a draft inter-institutional agreement reflecting the conclusions of the European Council. The three or four points raised in the resolution of the Parliament (flexibility and mid-term review, amongst others) do not feature in it. (LC/transl.fl)