05 April 2017

MEPs back budget flexibility: €6bn more for jobs, growth and tackling migration

Plans to make it easier to move money around within the EU’s long-run budget, to help tackle urgent challenges such as the migration crisis, strengthening security, boosting growth and creating jobs, were backed by Parliament.

The resulting top-ups, detailed in a joint statement of the European Parliament and the Council, amounting to €6,009 million (15% redeployments, 85% unallocated resources), will be distributed as follows:

• €3.9 billion for migration-related measures inside the EU (€2.55bn) and for tackling the root causes of migration externally (€1.39bn);

• €2.1 billion for jobs and growth, the bulk of which will boost the Youth Employment Initiative with €1.2bn for 2017-2020. The remaining funds are reserved for transport infrastructure, research programmes, SME support and Erasmus+.

In another adjoining statement by Parliament alone, MEPs made clear, however, that the amounts indicated in the €6bn package are “reference amounts to be examined in the context of the annual budgetary procedure, taking due account of the concrete circumstances of each annual budget”.

Full press release

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