The German Presidency of the European Council has reached an agreement with the European Parliament in relation to the EU’s long-term budget for 2021-2027. The agreement complements the comprehensive financial package of EUR 1 824.3 billion negotiated by EUCO in summer 2020, which combines the next multiannual financial framework – EUR 1 074.3 billion – and a EUR 750 billion temporary recovery instrument, Next Generation EU (in 2018 prices). The political agreement also represents a compromise to the EUCO agreement agreed by the leaders on Members States in the summer of 2020, which had seen a number of key programmes receive cuts to their funding (compared to the Commission’s proposal).
The political package agreed with the Parliament includes:
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Reinforcement of EU programmes, including Horizon Europe, EU4Health and Erasmus+, by an additional EUR 16 billion. This includes:
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EUR 84.9 billion for Horizon Europe research programme – an additional EUR 4 billion (compared to the EUCO agreement)
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EUR 5.1 billion for the EU4Health programme – an additional EUR 3.4 billion (compared to the EUCO agreement)
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EUR 21.2 billion for the Erasmus+ – an additional EUR 2.2 billion (compared to the EUCO agreement)
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More flexibility to allow the EU to respond to unforeseen needs
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Greater involvement of the budgetary authority in the oversight of revenue under Next Generation EU.
The next stage of the process will be for Member States to endorse the agreement along with other elements of the financial package. In addition, a plenary vote of the European Parliament must also approve the agreement. You can read more about the agreement here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/11/10/next-multiannual-financial-framework-and-recovery-package-council-presidency-reaches-political-agreement-with-the-european-parliament/
