The European Parliament wants to spend at least an additional two billion euros on Climate Policy in the coming years. This two billion has been included in their position on the size of the EU budgets. The governments of the EU countries want to increase the budget only in line with inflation, the European Commission wants an increase of about ten percent, and the European Parliament about 13 percent.
These higher budgets are not only a result of new choices by the European Parliament, but also the consequence of earlier decisions for which funding now needs to be found. Additionally, the 27 proposed EU Commissioners have outlined their wish list, and the proposed President Ursula von der Leyen also wants a ‘green deal’ with much new environmental policy.
In its position on the European Commission’s proposal, Members of the European Parliament call for investments of more than two billion euros in climate protection and about 500 million euros in the fight against youth unemployment and the Erasmus exchange program for young people. At the suggestion of the Greens, the European Parliament for the first time insisted on a separate budget item for an EU search-and-rescue mission at sea.
Promotion
In the draft resolution on the budget, the European Parliament emphasizes that the EU budget for 2020 is “the last chance for the European Union to fulfill the political commitments made for that period, also with a view to achieving the EU's climate objectives.” The budget must pave the way for the new multiannual financial framework (MFF), the EU long-term budget, for the period 2021-2027.
The Parliament voted on a budget of nearly 171 billion, which amounts to an increase of almost three billion more, on top of the already higher budget from the Commission. In the coming weeks, combined talks between the EU Council, EU Commission, and EU Parliament will be held to try and reach agreement on the 2020 budget and the multiannual financial plan.
At their meeting in Strasbourg, the chairs of the EU ministers, the Commission, and the Parliament were in full agreement about what they called ‘the failure of the heads of state at their summit in Brussels.’ Tusk, Juncker, and Sassoli condemned the failure of the government leaders to open accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia.
Tusk demands repentance from the government leaders and a commitment to both Balkan countries before May 2020 at the Zagreb Summit. Juncker called it a ‘major mistake’ in the EU Council. ‘We are not keeping our promises,’ while both countries have done so, he said, mainly addressing the reluctant France and the Netherlands.