The EU Council endorsed by qualified majority on Tuesday 11 December in Brussels the agreement between the institutions on the draft budget for 2019 (see EUROPE 12153). Only the United Kingdom abstained from voting. The evening before, the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets had also adopted the compromise.
The agreement between the institutions on the EU budget for 2019 provides for a total of 165.795 billion euros in commitments (increase of 3.2% compared to the 2018 budget) and 148.198 billion in payments (2.4% more than in 2018). The European Parliament is scheduled to vote on the 2019 budget on Wednesday 12 December in Strasbourg.
By adopting (17 votes in favour, 2 against and 5 abstentions) the report by Daniele Viotti (S&D, Italy) on the 2019 budget, the Committee on Budgets regrets that the Council rejected, in the context of the 2019 budget procedure, any discussion on the use of the new Article 15(3) of the Financial Regulation, which allows amounts released in the research field to be re-injected into the budget procedure. MEPs welcome the fact that the increases obtained in the negotiations, amounting to 943 million euros, correspond to Parliament's main political priorities.
12.3 billion euros will be allocated to Horizon 2020 (an increase of 9.8% compared to 2018) and 3.8 billion euros will fund infrastructure projects through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
An amount of 2.8 billion euros will be allocated to Erasmus+ (an increase of 20% compared to 2018). (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)