Politics
(Strasbourg) As part of the yearly EU budgeting process, on Tuesday 13th September the European Council will submit to the European Parliament, gathered on its plenary session in Strasbourg, its position about 2017’s draft budget. “The draft budget submitted by the EU Commission on 30th June includes 157.6 billion euros’ investments and 134.9 billion euros’ payments”, states the website of the EU Parliament, which will vote for its own official position at its plenary session on 26th October. “The EU Parliament and the EU Council, which, taken together, are the EU’s budgeting authority, will have to reach an agreement on next year’s budget by 17th November”. But, since the first draft, the EU Council has come up with remarkable cuts (as it does every year), i.e. 1.28 billion euros’ investments (-0.81%) and 1.1 billion euros’ payments (-0.82%). The Budget Committee of the EU Assembly powerfully criticised such cuts, “especially because we need to deal with the refugee crisis and slow economic growth”. In addition, the EU Council claims it wants to “spend most of the budget to take measures to boost smart, inclusive growth by allocating 74.3 billion euros to investments and 56.1 billion euros to payments”. Another key item is migration. So, now the negotiations between MEPs and the EU Council are coming into their own.
