![\"\"](\"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Ep-News-236-min.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MEPs set the overall EU Budget for 2019 at \u20ac166.34 billion for commitments and \u20ac149.3 billion in payments. Negotiations with the Council take place in November.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In their\u202fbudgetary resolution<\/a>, MEPs reaffirm their priorities: \u201csustainable growth, innovation, competitiveness, security, tackling root causes of refugees and migration flows, managing refugee and migration flows, the fight against climate change and the transition to sustainable energy, and a particular focus on young people.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Youth, growth and jobs<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n MEPs increased the Erasmus+\u00a0programme\u00a0by \u20ac362 million. They also added \u20ac346.7 million for the Youth Employment Initiative, raising the total for 2019 to \u20ac580 million to help youngsters desperately seeking a job.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They reject Council\u2019s \u201cunjustified \u20ac794 million cuts\u201d to the section of the EU budget committed to boost growth and create jobs. This represents just over half of the overall proposed Council cuts, MEPs say, and note that such cuts \u201cto\u00a0programmes\u00a0with the highest European added value, for example those to Horizon 2020 and Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) run counter to Council\u2019s stated political priorities\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n They therefore decided to fully restore the funding of infrastructure projects, and the Horizon 2020\u00a0programme, which backs research projects, adding \u20ac256.9 million. Both\u00a0programmes\u00a0had faced cuts as part of measures to help finance the EU guarantee for the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). Parliament further increased Horizon 2020 by another \u20ac65 million and climate-related spending under Horizon 2020, CEF and\u202fHeading 2<\/a>\u202fprogrammes\u00a0by another \u20ac97.3 million.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Other major additions include:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Refugee and migration crisis, cutting funds for Turkey<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n MEPs have bolstered certain budget lines with a clear link to the root causes of migration within the EU\u2019s immediate and wider\u00a0neighbourhood, such as the Development Cooperation Instrument (+\u20ac147,5 million), the European\u00a0Neighbourhood\u00a0Instrument (funds for the southern\u00a0neighbourhood\u00a0and Palestine, +\u20ac146 million) as well as pre-accession support for the Western Balkans (+\u20ac56.3 million). For actions to tackle migration challenges within the EU, MEPs have bolstered the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) with \u20ac33 million.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n MEPs insist that the EU budget share of the second tranche of the \u20ac3bn\u202fFacility for Refugees in Turkey<\/a>\u202f(FRT) must not exceed \u20ac1 billion, in order to keep the same ratio of the EU budget and member states contributions as for the first tranche. As \u20ac550 million were already used<\/a>\u202ffrom the 2018 EU budget, Parliament decreased the Commission\u2019s 2019 proposal by \u20ac1 billion, resulting in a contribution of \u20ac450 million (member states want a \u20ac2 billion contribution from the EU budget \u2013 and the Commission accordingly budgeted \u20ac1,450 million for the FRT in 2019).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As for pre-accession support to Turkey, MEPs decided not to reverse the cuts made by the Council, further decreasing part of the pre-accession funds by \u20ac66.8 million, arriving, in total, at a reduction of \u20ac213.5 million below the Commission\u2019s proposal in funds earmarked for Turkey, due to a lack of respect for EU values\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MEPs set the overall EU Budget for 2019 at \u20ac166.34 billion for commitments and \u20ac149.3 billion in payments. Negotiations with the Council take place in November.\u00a0 In their\u202fbudgetary resolution, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2092,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":""},"issuem_issue":[88],"issuem_issue_categories":[8],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.8.8","language":"en","enabled_languages":["mt","en"],"languages":{"mt":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2102"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2104,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/2102\/revisions\/2104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue?post=2102"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_categories?post=2102"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_tags?post=2102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n