18/09/2019 (Agence Europe) – In Strasbourg on Wednesday 18 September, the European Parliament approved (by 601 votes to 40, with 12 abstentions) the amending budget that allows EU Member States to recover the €1.8 billion surplus from the 2018 budget by reducing countries' contributions to the 2019 EU budget by the same amount. The surplus mostly comes from interest on late payments and fines collected by the European Commission, and from under-utilisation of EU programme funds. (LC)