End of psychodrama... Finally there was not too much doubt ... Come on, smile, here we go again for a year! :(
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union negotiators on Tuesday reached agreement on the EU budget for 2014, down 6% to 135,5 billion euros, with a focus on tackling youth unemployment.
This agreement is the first to be part of the new framework defined in February by EU leaders for the budgets for the period 2014-2020. In this framework, funds entered in a budget but not spent can be transferred to the budget of the following year with the agreement of EU governments.
"I am delighted that we have reached an agreement with the European Parliament on funding priorities such as growth, jobs, innovation and humanitarian aid", said Algimantas Rimkunas, Deputy Minister of Finance of the Lithuania, country holding the rotating presidency of the EU.
This agreement, concluded after more than 16 hours of negotiations, includes an envelope of 3,9 billion euros to support job creation, training and learning for the 19 million young unemployed Europeans.
Some consider this effort clearly insufficient since it represents approximately 200 euros per young unemployed person.
The leaders of the 28 European countries meet this Tuesday in Paris for a meeting devoted to youth unemployment.
About two-thirds of EU spending will go into agricultural subsidies and investments such as the development of road infrastructure in countries in the center and east of the continent.
This agreement still needs to be endorsed by the European Council and the European Parliament meeting in plenary session.
The EU budget represents approximately 1% of the GDP of the Twenty-Eight, which is very little compared to the cumulative amount of the national budgets of the Member States, equivalent to nearly 50% of European GDP in 2012.
Charlie Dunmore and Robert-Jan Bartunek; Bertrand Boucey for the French service, edited by Benoît Van Overstraeten
source: uk.reuters.com
Additional information :
Crashdebug.fr: The European Commission is threatened with default
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