The countries of the European Union and the European Parliament reached an agreement this Saturday on a 2025 budget of 192,768.6 million euros in commitments, 1.78% more than the 2024 accounts, with funds to help countries facing natural disasters, such as Spain.
The pact also provides 149,615.7 million euros in paymentsreported the Council of the EU in a press release.
This year they stayed 800.5 million euros available within spending limits of the current multiannual financial framework for 2021-2027, allowing the EU to respond to unforeseeable needs, the Council added.
If we include this figure for special instruments outside the multiannual financial framework, The EU budget for 2025 amounts to 199,438.4 million euros in total commitments and 155,209.3 million euros in total payments.
As part of next year’s budget, negotiators agreed to advance payment appropriations worth up to 3 billion euros to support European regions affected by natural disasters.
In this way, once the legal basis is confirmed, Member States will be able to use up to 10% of existing cohesion policy funds to prevent and recover from such disasters, provided that they present a modified program to the Commission, noted the European Parliament in another press release.
In July, the European Commission proposed a budget for 2025 which envisaged 199.7 billion euros in commitments (the resources that can be allocated to programmes), equivalent to 1.08% of the EU’s gross national income, and €152.7 billion in payments (the money actually disbursed).
Member States proposed in September reduce these figures by respectively 1,520 million euros and 876 millionwhile the European Parliament demanded to raise the overall level of commitments to 201 billion euros and payments to 153.3 billion, above the Brussels proposal.
The European Parliament complained that the maximum limits are still very low and expressed concern about “additional costs” for the interests of the Next Generation recovery fund, which They amount to around 2.6 billion euros, “double” the Commission’s initial forecasts.
The Council, for its part, called for focusing on major Community priorities when distributing funds, criticized the excessive use of the flexibility instrument – intended to deal with unforeseen events – and insisted on the need not to increase the burden on Member States at a time when many have little budgetary space, according to the Hungarian Secretary of State for Finance, Peter Banai, whose country holds the presidency of the Council.
Spain expressed on Friday morning, during the debate between the countries, its rejection of the reduction in the budget of the Agricultural Guarantee Fund, which provides direct aid to farmers, while demonstrating in favor of increasing Horizon Europe allocationErasmus Plus and funds for the management of external borders, the EU’s southern neighborhood and sub-Saharan Africa.
Finally, The budget agreed this Saturday is “balanced” and “prudent”, leaving “sufficient financial margin to respond to unforeseen circumstances,” Banai said.
And he added that “this is a realistic approach which takes into account the current economic and geopolitical context and the need to face the new challenges that could arise in 2025” and “provides the necessary financing for the reconstruction of countries affected by natural disasters”.
The chairman of the budget committee, the Belgian Johan Van Overtveldt, one of the negotiators on behalf of the European Parliament, stressed that the pact “demonstrates the EU’s capacity to act and adapt in these uncertain times”such as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, migratory pressures, natural disasters or pressures on economic competitiveness.
The 2025 budget is prepared for the first time after the revision of the 2021-2027 multiannual financial frameworkwhich was updated last February to include 50 billion euros in aid to Ukraine and strengthen certain priority elements.
The revision amounts to 64.6 billion euros (discounting loans to kyiv) and created a “cascade” system to pay extraordinary interest on the recovery fund debt (estimated at around 15 billion for the period).
The European Parliament and the Council have now fourteen days to formally approve the concluded agreement.
The Council is expected to approve it on November 25 and Parliament is expected to vote on it during its session plenary session scheduled for November 27 in Strasbourg (France).
