Doorbraak bij EU-top over meerjarenbegroting (en)

BRUSSELS - After eighteen hours of talks EU leaders early Friday morning (8 February) agreed to a total EU budget of €960 billion for the next seven years, which is smaller than the current €1 trillion budget.

The farm budget is cut from currently €420bn to €373bn. Cohesion funds, the second largest part of the budget is cut from currently €354bn to €324bn.

The only part of the budget to secure substantially more money in the proposal is for research, technology and innovation, up from currently €91bn to €126bn. This is less than proposed originally by the Commission €164bn and also less than the €164bn proposed by Van Rompuy in November, when EU leaders failed to reach agreement on the new budget. It remains, however, the biggest hike on any part of the budget.

One of the key-initiatives is the European Commission's flagship project, 'Connecting Europe', a plan to invest over €50bn in European transport, energy and internet infrastructures take a big hit in the draft budget, with only €29bn made available for it.

Of this total €23bn is allocated for transport, €5bn for energy and €1bn for internet infrastrctures. For other flag projects, Gallileo, ITER and GMES total €13bn is allocated.

In the budget tabled on Friday morning administration costs are also accepted to go up, from currently €57bn to €61bn in the future budget, which covers a period where EU will take on board minimum one new country, Croatia.

The EU institutions will have to reduce staff by five percent over the next four years. The remaining staff will have to work more for the same amount of money. Also, salaries of EU officials are set to be frozen for the next two years: "As part of the reform of the staff regulation, the adjustment of salaries and pensions will be suspended for two years."

The document tabled by EU president Herman van Rompuy i keeps the rebates for Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. Denmark is added to the list of countries getting a rebate of €139 million, while Austria stands to lose its €179 million rebate it has enjoyed in the last seven years.

The talks among all EU leaders have resumed in the early morning hours of Friday and are still ongoing.