Budget MEPs vote position on next year's draft budget
Budget MEPs on Tuesday gave a mandate to the Parliament negotiating team in charge of reaching an agreement with Council on next year's European budget. The mandate reveals Parliament's priorities for the 2016 budget and is a response to the draft budget presented by the Commission in May.
Budgets MEPs adopted the following principles proposed by 2016 budget rapporteur Mr José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, PT) to follow during the budget negotiations with Council:
- respect commitments taken in the multiannual financial framework and ensure sufficient payments are available to reduce the backlog of unpaid bills to €2 billion in cohesion;
- mitigate the cuts in Horizon 2020 research programme and in the Connecting Europe Facility aimed at linking up Europe's energy, transport and digital networks. The cuts were made to set up the European Fund for Strategic Investment and their annual maximal offsetting was one of the aims of parliamentary negotiators;
- reverse the decrease in support for small and medium sized enterprises (COSME programme);
- continue the support for youth out of work through the Youth Employment Initiative; and
- support external and internal security programs, including the management of migration, at a level beyond the current one.
Parliament adopted its priorities for the 2016 budget on 11 March.
Next steps
Parliament as a whole votes on the mandate at its July session, followed by the Council's presentation of its informal position and on 14 July by the first three-way talks among the two arms of the budgetary authority (Parliament and Council) and the European Commission. Talks resume in September to reach an agreement before the end of the year.
In the chair: Mr Jean Arthuis (ALDE, FR)
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