In Brussels on Thursday 1 December, the European Parliament approved (by 438 votes in favour, 194 against and 7 abstentions) the EU budget for 2017 (see EUROPE 11677). The budget was then signed off by the President of the EP, Martin Schulz.
The plenary debate the day before showed that the MEPs feel the 2017 budget was a step in the right direction. Many of them, however, would have liked to see more money for investment, growth, jobs and controls on migration flows.
The total amount in commitments has been set at €157.88 billion. Payments have been set at €134.49 billion. Taking account of amending budgets nos. 1 to 6, the EU budget for 2017 will be up by 1.7% in commitments, but down by 1.6% in payments due to the 11.2% cut in funding for the cohesion policy. Overall, this leaves a margin below the ceilings of the MFF (multi-annual financial framework) for 2017 of €1.1 billion in commitment appropriations.
In particular, Parliament welcomed the extra envelope of €200 million (€50 million for four programmes) secured for: COSME (support to SMEs), the Connecting Europe Facility, Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+ (student mobility).
The mobilisation of the flexibility instrument in 2017 has been approved at a level of €530 million in commitment appropriations under heading 3 (security and citizenship). The overall commitments margin has been used to provide the sum of €1.4 billion for heading 1a (competitiveness). The contingency margin has been mobilised to the tune of €1.9 billion in headings 3 and 4 (EU in the world).
"We have achieved our aims", said the rapporteur, Jens Geier (S&D, Germany). According to Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France), the chair of Parliament's budgets committee, the main message sent out is that now more than ever, the priority remains to "tackle the migration problem head-on", by reinforcing the control of our external borders, whilst allowing "new arrivals to be welcomed in dignity and appropriate and humane returns of migrants not eligible for refugee status". The secondary message sent out is that Europe is investing in its young people: an extra €500 million will be made available to the youth employment initiative. In fact, the total is €1 billion, including the additional allocations from the European Social Fund.
Many MEPs regretted the fact that this will be the last-ever budget of the Vice-President of the Commission, Kristalina Georgieva. She received many warm wishes for success as she takes up her new role the World Bank, early next year. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)