EU budget for 2025 to focus on research, health, education and climate action

The EU’s 2025 budget should focus on improving people’s lives, strengthening competitiveness and solving current problems, MEPs say.

In the draft budget for 2025, the MEP set the total amount of commitment appropriations at almost 201 billion euros, which is approximately 1.24 billion euros more than in the Commission’s recommendation. Parliament wants to increase funding for programs necessary to tackle health challenges, help young people, support agriculture, promote climate action, manage migration and security needs and strengthen EU support for regions nearby which is experiencing a geopolitical and humanitarian crisis. Representatives renewed the funding reduction proposed by the Council with 1.52 billion euros and set payment allocations in the amount of 153.5 billion euros.

European Recovery Instrument (ESI) interest payments.

MEPs say that the cost of ESAI repayment, which is double what was originally planned for 2025, should not reduce funding for essential programs such as Erasmus+ or research and development. Therefore they want to reverse the reductions in allocations for these areas that the Member States put forward and to demand that the ‘new Cascade Tool’ ESAI is used correctly. It was created review of the EU’s long-term budget. This mechanism is designed to manage Next Generation EU‘s increased borrowing costs without affecting key initiatives, while maintaining budgetary flexibility and responsiveness.

Victor Negrescu (S&D, Romania), the main rapporteur for the EU budget 2024 (Section III – “Commission”): “Today’s vote is a sign of support for a budget aimed at investing in economic development and improving people’s lives . That is why we want an increase of 110 million euros for health programs, 70 million euros more for the Erasmus+ program, 42 million euros for the protection of our citizens against the effects of natural disasters, 96 million euros more for agriculture. , 120 million euros for humanitarian aid and 110 million euros for the eastern and southern regions.

Niklas Herbst (ETP, Germany), rapporteur for other budget sections: “Cybersecurity is essential for EU institutions and a concern from 2023 onwards. It is also important to ensure that the EU institutions have enough staff to carry out new tasks, such as the implementation of the Artificial Intelligence Act. In addition, it is necessary to improve the security of the European External Action Service buildings, especially in delegations located in high-risk regions. An additional 37 million euros are needed to address this.”

The next steps

The vote will begin three weeks of “reconciliation” talks with the Council to approve next year’s budget. The agreement must be approved by the Parliament in a vote, and then it will be signed by the President of the Parliament.

Basic information

More than 90% of the EU budget is used for the needs of citizens, farmers, researchers, students, NGOs and businesses in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Unlike national budgets, the EU budget is primarily focused on investment to stimulate growth and new opportunities across the EU.

The EU unites 27 countries with a total population of 450 million. Considering these figures, the annual budget of the EU is very small – on average 160-180 billion euros per year in 2021-27. year. This compares to the national budget of Denmark (5.6 million inhabitants) and is about 30% less than the budget of Poland (38 million inhabitants). Source: Commission