EU Budget 2015 must promote growth and jobs

The EPP Group wants to promote growth and jobs with a credible and solidary budget that strengthens scientific research, Erasmus+, the CEF and SMEs. It therefore does not accept the Council's position, presenting cuts and deepening the payments problem.

"We are facing a recurrent shortage of payments in the EU budget: not paying all outstanding bills on time nor fulfilling EU obligations and commitments not only raises legal questions but also threatens the implementation of new programmes and the credibility of the EU", said EPP Group Spokesman José Manuel Fernandes MEP as several million Euros are expected to remain unpaid at the end of this year,

amounting to €23.4 billion which was due at the end of 2013.

Supporting a solution to this problem, the EPP Group considers that all cuts introduced by the Council should be restored and proposes using all the flexibility instruments of the Multiannual Financial Framework in the 2015 budget, leading to an additional amount of more than €4 billion in payments in order to effectively address the situation.

“The bills - all legal, agreed and requested by Member States - remain unpaid. The beneficiaries are young people, SMEs, researchers, universities and local authorities. It is unacceptable that these expenses - that were foreseen in the budget - cannot be paid because there are no funds”, concluded the Portuguese MEP.