After many hours of negotiations, representatives of the member states of the European Union and the European Parliament agreed tonight on the form of the EU budget for next year. MEPs managed to increase the proposed amount of almost 170 billion euros (4.3 trillion CZK) by several hundred million, but the member states, which traditionally strive for a lower budget, rejected many of their other demands.
The EU will have € 169.5 billion available for its financial commitments next year, almost two billion more than the European Commission proposed on the basis of the bloc’s seven-year budget, approved last year. MEPs demanded another two billion, but failed during tough negotiations.
“The funding we have just agreed will support the ongoing recovery and significantly help meet our climate and digital goals,” said Irena Drmažová, a representative of the Slovenian EU Presidency, who led the negotiations on behalf of the member states.
After the meeting, the representatives of the European Parliament emphasized that they managed to add a hundred million to the Horizon research program against the original proposal, and tens of millions in addition to, among other things, joint EU healthcare or Erasmus study visits abroad.
“The budget contains important resources for the challenges the Union is now facing. In the field of health for the next fight of covid-19, but also in terms of research and innovation needed to modernize our economies,” said one of the parliamentary negotiators Johan Van Overtveldt .