Adopted on Monday 7 October, the position of MEPs in the Committee on Budgets on the EU budget for 2025 restores €1.52 billion in funding cuts proposed by the EU Council (see EUROPE 13455/8), bringing the allocations back to the European Commission’s original position.
MEPs therefore voted in favour of restoring appropriations on the lines reduced by the EU Council to the level of the initial draft budget plan proposed by the Commission. The European Parliament, for example, is calling for the restoration of the €300 million cut by the Council.
Increases are being sought, for example, for Erasmus+ (€70 million), for the EU4Health programme and for the Health Cluster, as part of the Horizon Europe research framework programme (€110 million), but also for agricultural programmes (€96 million) and for the ‘EU Civil Protection Mechanism’ (€42 million).
The Committee on Budgets insists on adequate funding for youth, farmers, SMEs, education, health, research, infrastructure, security and humanitarian aid. MEPs want the EU budget to respond to current challenges such as the consequences of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the green and digital transition and supporting economic recovery.
“The most important task” was to combine “the high interest rates of the Recovery and Resilience Facility” with the “priorities for the next budget”, said Victor Negrescu (S&D, Romanian), general rapporteur for Section III of the budget.
The cascade mechanism for paying interest under NextGenerationEU, which was introduced as part of the mid-term review of the MFF in February 2024, must not reduce funding for essential EU programmes, said the European Parliament, even if the repayment costs are double the amount initially planned for 2025.
Parliament’s position will be voted on at the second plenary session of October in Strasbourg. Negotiations will then begin with the EU Council.
See the amendments submitted for Section III: https://aeur.eu/f/dra
See the amendments submitted for the other sections: https://aeur.eu/f/drb (Original version in French by Florent Servia)