The European Parliament wants to spend at least two billion euros extra on climate policy in the coming years. They have included those two billion in their position on the size of the EU budgets. The governments of the EU countries only want to increase the budget inflationary, the European Commission wants an increase of about ten percent, and the European Parliament about 13 percent.
These higher budgets are not only the result of new choices made by the European Parliament, but also the result of previous choices where funding must now be sought. In addition, the 27 intended EU Supervisory Board members have drawn up their package of wishes, and intended chairman Ursula von der Leyen also wants a 'green deal' with a lot of new environmental policy.
In Parliament's position on the European Commission's proposal, MEPs call for investments of more than € 2 billion in climate protection and about € 500 million in the fight against youth unemployment and the Erasmus youth exchange program. At the suggestion of the Greens, the European Parliament for the first time called for a separate budget item for a EU rescue mission at sea.
In the motion for a resolution on the budget, the European Parliament underlines that the EU budget for 2020 is “the last chance for the European Union to reinforce the political commitments made for that period, also with a view to achieving the EU climate goals. , to realise". The budget should pave the way for the new multiannual financial framework (MFF), the EU long-term budget, for the period 2021-2027.
Parliament voted on a budget of nearly $ 171 billion, an increase of nearly $ 3 billion on top of the Commission's already higher budget. In the coming weeks, joint discussions of EU Council, EU Commission and EU Parliament will try to reach agreement on the 2020 budget and on the multi-annual forecast.
At their meeting in Strasbourg, the chairpersons of the EU ministers, of the Commission and of Parliament were in complete agreement on what they called 'the failure of the heads of state at their summit in Brussels'. Tusk, Juncker and Sassoli denounced the failure of government leaders to open accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia.
Tusk demands from the heads of government a pledge to both Balkan countries before May 2020 at the Summit in Zagreb. Juncker spoke of a 'big mistake' in the EU Council. "We are not keeping our promises," now that both countries have done so, "he said, especially in opposing France and the Netherlands.