The European Parliament and the EU Council failed to reach an agreement on the EU budget for 2019 after the legal deadline of Monday 19 November (see EUROPE 12137).
The main stumbling block concerns unused 'research' funds, to be reallocated in 2019 to the Horizon 2020research framework programme, a measure on which the Parliament places great emphasis, in accordance with a new legal provision. But the EU Council refuses, citing the risk of setting a "precedent with unknown future consequences".
“What is not acceptable is the gap between the speech on the importance of research for the EU to remain competitive and the budgetary acts, which are not up to the task", said Jean Arthuis (ALDE, France), Chairman of the Parliament Budgets Committee, on Tuesday 20 November in EUROPE.
The European Commission, which had suggested reallocating 150 million euros to finance in 2019 part of the 413 million unused research funds from 2017, will have to make a new formal budget proposal.
If the budget is not voted, the Council will not have the €2 billion from the EU budget it is asking for to finance the €3 billion allocation for the EU Facility for Refugees in Turkey in 2019, Mr Arthuis (see EUROPE 12056) warned. Parliament wanted the contribution from the EU budget not to exceed 1 billion. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)