The Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Member States to the EU (Coreper) approved the EU Council's position on the draft EU budget for 2020 on Wednesday 10 July, with an increase of 0.6% for commitment appropriations and 3.3% for payment appropriations.
The EU Council will still have to formally adopt its position at the beginning of September, which will serve as a mandate for the Finnish Presidency in negotiations with the European Parliament to reach agreement on the elements of the EU budget for 2020.
As usual, at this stage of the procedure, the EU Council significantly reduced the appropriations initially proposed by the Commission in the draft budget plan for 2020 (-€1.5 billion for commitments and -€508.8 million for payment appropriations).
In total, the EU Council's position for next year's budget amounts to €166.8 billion in commitments and €153.1 billion in payments. Compared to 2019, this represents an increase of 0.6% in commitments and 3.3% in payments.
The agreed figures are based on the assumption that the United Kingdom will continue to participate fully in the financing and implementation of the EU budget until the end of 2020.
For the item ‘Competitiveness for growth and employment’, the EU Council forecasts a total of €24 billion, or +2.72% compared to 2019. The largest increases in the 2020 budget are planned for European satellite navigation systems (EGNOS and Galileo: €1.2 billion, or +74.75%), the energy component of the Connecting Europe Facility (€1.2 billion, or +24.94%). Increases are planned for the EU's flagship programmes Horizon 2020 (€12.8 billion, or +3.73%) and Erasmus + (€2.8 billion, or +2.49%). The item ‘cohesion’ is up by 2.23% compared to 2019.
For details: https://bit.ly/2G3U9FC (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)