Negotiators from the European Parliament and the governments of the EU countries have agreed on the EU budget for the coming year. According to both sides, the agreement reached on Tuesday night stipulates that around 169.5 billion euros can be planned for in 2022. This corresponds to an increase of around five billion euros compared to the original budget planning for the current year. The money from the EU community budget is intended, among other things, to help contain the economic consequences of the corona pandemic and to promote environmental and climate protection. A large part of the amount will continue to be used to support farmers and comparatively poor regions in the EU countries.
“Today we reached a balanced agreement, which is good news for the citizens of Europe,” commented Irena Drmaz, a Slovenian negotiator for the government. The financial package will continue to support the current upswing and the goals in the area of climate and digital policy. EU budget commissioner Johannes Hahn was also relieved. He should have presented a new draft budget if the talks had failed.
According to diplomats, a major point of contention in the negotiations was the EU Parliament’s demand for up to 322 new employees. Member States considered this claim to be insufficiently justified, but the European Parliament ultimately prevailed with the threat of otherwise breaking the talks.
The Croat Karlo Ressler, who negotiates for the European Parliament, explained in a press conference that the additional posts were necessary so that Parliament could properly fulfill its control function in relation to Corona aid and its role as a legislator. However, he did not give details when asked. In Parliament’s press release on the agreement, the employee issue was not mentioned at all.
The EU Parliament will have 322 additional posts
Basically, the negotiations were about the question of how much money should be planned for 2022. The EU Parliament started negotiations with the demand that an amount of 171.8 billion euros be made available in the coming year. The member states started with a bid of 167.7 billion euros. They were just below the 167.8 billion euros that Budget Commissioner Hahn had proposed in his first draft for the 2022 budget.
After the negotiations were concluded, the European Parliament emphasized that it had negotiated an additional 479 million euros for its priorities in areas such as health, youth and climate protection. More money than planned by the EU Commission will therefore be available for the European Erasmus program for youth, education and sport and the Life program for environmental, nature and climate protection projects.
The budget negotiations are particularly important for Germany because the Federal Republic, as the largest net contributor to the Union, contributes significantly more than a fifth of the funds in the EU budget. At the same time, the federal government is fundamentally emphasizing that Germany benefits more from the EU internal market than any other European economy. From German negotiating circles it was pointed out during the negotiations that in 2022, due to the reconstruction program “Next Generation EU”, more money than ever will be available for the financing of European projects.
The EU’s multi-year Corona reconstruction program provides for aid totaling 800 billion euros after adjusted prices. They are made available in addition to funds from the normal Community budget. In the latter, the member states want to pay in around 1,074 billion euros in the EU financial period from 2021 to the end of 2027.
In order for the budget for 2022 to be implemented, the agreement reached on Tuesday night still has to be confirmed in a plenary session of parliament and a council of ministers. However, this is considered a formality.