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In total, the Council's position for next year's budget amounts to €166.8 billion in commitments and €153.1 billion in payments. Compared to 2019, this is an increase of +0.6% in commitments and +3.3% in payments.
The increase in payments reflects the acceleration of programme implementation towards the end of the multiannual financial framework for 2014-2020. It should allow for budgetary commitments to be paid in sufficient time to avoid the accumulation of outstanding bills, in particular in cohesion policy, where the implementation of programmes continues at an accelerated pace.
The agreed figures are based on the premise that the UK will continue to participate fully in the financing and implementation of the EU budget until the end of 2020.
Continued support for growth and jobs
Strengthening the European economy remains a key priority for member states.
The Council therefore continues to support the reinforcement of programmes under the "Competitiveness for growth and jobs" heading, which would receive €24.0 billion in total, or +2.72% compared to 2019.
The biggest increases in the 2020 budget would concern European satellite navigation systems (EGNOS and Galileo: €1.2 billion, or +74.75%), the energy strand of the Connecting Europe Facility (€1.2 billion, or +24.94%) and the European Solidarity Corps (€166 million, +15.88%). In all these cases the Council has supported the funding levels proposed by the Commission.
Increases are also foreseen for the EU's flagship programmes Horizon 2020 (€12.8 billion, or +3.73%) and Erasmus+ (€2.8 billion, or +2.49%), as well as for COSME, which supports SMEs and entrepreneurship, and the European Defence Industrial Development Programme, which will help to pave the way for the European Defence Fund for the 2021-2027 period (+7.06% and +4.08%, respectively).
The "Economic, social and territorial cohesion" heading, gets a boost of +€633.6 million, which represents an increase of +2.23% compared to 2019.
Council position on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2020