In Brussels on Thursday 30 November, the European Parliament approved, by a reasonable majority (295 votes to 154 with 197 abstentions), the budget of the European Union for 2018 on which an agreement was reached by the conciliation committee.
The figures agreed upon by the negotiators of the Parliament and of the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU are as follows: €160.1 billion in commitment appropriations and €144.7 billion in payment appropriations (see EUROPE 11908). According to the Estonian Presidency, these figures represent an increase in commitments of +.2% compared to the revised 2017 budget, and 14.1% in payments, due to a “fully functioning” consumption of the Community programmes over the period 2014-2020.
“The EU is capable of acting, we have the budget to do so”, said Parliament's rapporteur, Siegfried Mureșan (EPP, Romania), during Wednesday's plenary debate. He welcomed the fact that limited budgetary resources have been allocated to priority areas such as employment, research and innovation (€11.2 billion, or +8.4% on 2017) and security and citizens' health, the migration challenge (€940 million, or +8.9%). An envelope of €2.3 billion (+12.1%) will pay for the Erasmus+ bursaries and over €400 million will go to fight misinformation, he observed. He reiterated that the pre-accession funds for Turkey have been cut (-€105 million compared to the Commission's initial proposal) and others frozen (€70 million), until Ankara comes into line with certain fundamental values.
According to Matti Maasikas, speaking on behalf of the Estonian Presidency, the 2018 budget, which was adopted within the timeframe, is “realistic”: it will cover the necessary expenditure whilst leaving some margin (€1.6 billion) for contingencies.
Speaking out against member states which “constantly ask the EU for more whilst cutting its budget”, the members of the French Socialist delegation in Parliament did not vote on the 2018 budget today.
France considering whether to go back to Court
It remains to be seen whether France will go before the Court of Justice a second time, as the budget did over the 2017 budget, as it was adopted in Brussels rather than in Strasbourg, Parliament's headquarters (see EUROPE 11913). According to our information, the French authorities are considering this option.
At the Parliament, many consider that the budgetary session required by the Treaties to be held in Strasbourg is not the one at which the budgetary agreement was adopted, as this has already taken place when the draft 2018 budget was read at the end of October (see EUROPE 11891).
“Strasbourg is the heart of European democracy, it is therefore not right for the final vote on the EU 2018 budget not to take place there”, was the immediate reaction of two French MEPs of the EPP group, Franck Proust and Anne Sander. Even though they voted in favour of the agreement on the 2018 budget, they wrote on the same day to the French Minister for European affairs, Nathalie Loiseau, asking her to arrange for France to bring another case before the Court of Justice of the EU to challenge the fact that the budget was voted on in Brussels. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)