European ministers responsible for the EU budget will attempt, on Friday 15 November in Brussels, to negotiate with the European Parliament a compromise on the main elements of the EU budget for 2020. The negotiations are expected to be tough, due to differences on the total level of expenditure and the means to be devoted to climate goals (see EUROPE 12355/5).
Negotiations on next year's EU budget will take place late on Friday at a meeting of the Conciliation Committee between the European Parliament and the EU Council. Some sources said they expect difficult debates and even no agreement come Saturday morning. A three-week conciliation period began on 29 October in order to reconcile the positions of the two institutions.
The EU Council session will resume at the end of the Conciliation Committee meeting. If an agreement is reached, the EU Council will approve it. In the event of a blockage, it will decide on the next steps to be taken.
The main questions that will arise this year should concern: - the level of spending on climate action in different areas and programmes (the Parliament has provided for an increase of €2 billion in the envelope to a total of 20% of expenditure; however, the EU Council considers this effort too important); - the financing of the various programmes under budget subheading 1a (competitiveness), including the use of Article 15(3) of the Financial Regulation ('de-commitments' resulting from the non-execution of research projects); - the financing of the Youth Employment Initiative (the Parliament calls for an increase of €363.3 million compared to the Commission's project) under heading 1b (cohesion); - the overall level of appropriations and margins (the Parliament has exhausted the margins by using the various flexibility tools).
In its position of 3 September (see EUROPE 12293/6), the EU Council projected commitments of €166.8 billion and payments of €153.1 billion. The European Parliament proposed commitment appropriations of €171.0 billion and payment appropriations of €159.1 billion.
The conciliation process will end on 18 November. If it fails, the Commission will have to present a new draft budget and the budgetary procedure will start over.
If the budget is not adopted at the beginning of 2020, the system of ‘provisional twelfths’ will apply which means that not more than one twelfth of the budget appropriations for the previous year or of the draft budget proposed by the Commission - whichever is smaller - may be spent each month for any chapter of the budget. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)