The European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets, meeting on Monday 10 October called for the EU budget for 2023 to meet both the challenges of the current crises and the needs of citizens.
By adopting (31 votes in favour, none against and one abstention) the draft report by Nicolae Ştefănuță (Renew Europe, Romanian) and Niclas Herbst (EPP, German), which accompanies the budget amendments for 2023, the European Parliament Committee on Budgets stresses that the Union must be provided with all possible budgetary means to respond to the current crises and focus on the needs of citizens.
The total level of appropriations proposed for 2023 amounts to €187.3 billion in commitments (+€1.7 billion compared to the budget as proposed by the European Commission) and €167.6 billion in payments (see EUROPE 13034/15).
Challenges include the direct and indirect impact of the war in Ukraine, high inflation, rising poverty, high energy prices and security of supply risks, deteriorating economic prospects, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises and the most vulnerable households, the need to ensure a fair, inclusive and sustainable economic recovery from the pandemic, as well as the green and digital transitions and the growing urgency of addressing climate change.
MEPs have increased EU funding for programmes deemed essential: Horizon Europe (+€311 million compared to the Commission’s draft budget plan), the Connecting Europe Facility (+ €90 million), the Digital Europe programme (+€251 million) and the LIFE environment and climate programme (+€60 million). Support for SMEs, in view of high energy prices, has been increased by €10 million.
The Parliament will vote on Wednesday 19 October in plenary session on the budget amendments and the related report on the 2023 budget. After the vote, the conciliation procedure with the EU Council will last 3 weeks, with the aim of reaching an agreement between the two institutions in time for next year’s budget to be voted by Parliament and signed by its President before the end of the year.
The S&D group said it opposed the adoption of “a controversial plan” to swap the European Parliament’s Salvador de Madariaga (SDM) building in Strasbourg for a new building (Osmose). According to the S&D group, a swap of this kind would lead to “an unreasonable expenditure of taxpayers’ money”. This group has tabled an amendment to stop this project during the vote on the draft report on the 2023 budget.
“Unfortunately, the EPP, Renew Europe and Greens/EFA groups did not support the S&D group in rejecting this plan”, complained the S&D group.
Review of the MFF. MEPs believe that the draft budget plan is an insufficient response to current challenges and point out that the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027 was not designed to deal with a pandemic, war, high inflation, high energy prices, large numbers of refugees, new accessions, food insecurity and humanitarian crises. They believe that “there is an urgent need for a substantial revision of the MFF, to be submitted as soon as possible and no later than the first quarter of 2023”.
MEPs also discussed on Monday the draft report by Jan Olbrycht (EPP, Polish) and Margarida Marques (S&D, Portuguese) on the MFF 2021-2027 (a resilient EU budget adapted to new challenges).
The draft report expresses concern that “unexpectedly high levels of inflation are placing the MFF under severe strain and reducing its purchasing power further, in a context where its overall level is already lower than previous MFFs”.
Link to this draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/3iw (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)