MEPs debated the common position on the EU’s 2025 annual budget at the European Parliament on Tuesday 26 November.
“We have reached an ambitious agreement” (see EUROPE 13526/15), announced rapporteur Victor Negrescu (S&D, Romanian). The 2025 budget has been increased by 6% compared with the previous year. The agreement is far from being “a formality” in the context of the war in Ukraine, according to Mr Negrescu.
The cuts proposed by the Council have been avoided, pointed out Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe, French), but “these increases represent only a very small percentage of the European budget, at a time when citizens are calling for more action”, she added. The budget “remains modest”, according to Nils Ušakovs (S&D, Latvian): “€200 billion is less than Denmark’s budget”.
Already focused on the future, the new Committee on Budgets Chair, Johan Van Overtveldt, added that “the European budget is too tied to long-term planning, where our initiatives cannot be financed and where we cannot meet the expectations of our citizens and businesses”. In his view, one of the priorities of the next MFF will be to introduce greater flexibility into the European budgetary mechanism.
Many MEPs welcomed the possibility of protecting citizens against natural disasters through the introduction of the €3 billion RESTORE proposal.
MEPs will vote on the final adoption of the text at the plenary session on Wednesday 27 November. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)