Increasing citizens’ information, increasing funds for the Galileo satellite navigation project and for the European Institute of Technology. The Strasbourg Parliament completed the first stage of the procedure for the EU Budget for 2008 (first reading), which shall end with the plenary session in December and the go-ahead from the EU Council. The speakers, the Finnish MEPs Kyosti Virrankoski and Ville Itala, also asked for more funds to help the populations of Kosovo and Palestine. In the 2008 budget, the receivables entries amount to about 124 billion euros (0.99% of the Gross Domestic product of the EU), while the total amount of payables that is, expenses is 129 billion euros, more than the amount planned by both Commission and Council. Unless the entries are deeply changed during the process, the next year’s one will be the first budget in the EU’s history in which funds allocated to growth and employment will be higher than funds allocated to agriculture. In the run-up to the parliamentary election of 2009, the Assembly also asked that the communication policy should be strengthened, with the help of the local and regional mass media.
