EU budget 2020: Commission focuses its proposal on jobs, growth and security

Credit: European Communities, 2001 Source: EC – Audiovisual Service

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission.

The Commission has today proposed an EU budget of €168.3 billion for 2020 for a more competitive European economy, and for solidarity and security in the EU and beyond.

This budget is the seventh and last one under the current 2014-2020 long-term EU budget and operates within the limitations set therein. It is designed to optimise funding for existing programmes as well as new initiatives and to boost the European added value in line with the Juncker Commission’s priorities.

Günther H. Oettinger, European Commissioner for Budget and Human Resources, said: “The draft 2020 EU budget is the last budget proposal of the Juncker Commission. It seeks to continue supporting EU’s priorities- jobs, growth, young people, climate change, security and solidarity- and to prepare the transition to the next budgetary cycle. I invite the Council and the new Parliament to come to a timely agreement that would provide stability for the EU’s future.”

As per the Commission proposal, the money under the 2020 budget will go to the following priority areas: competitive economy and young people; and strengthening security and solidarity in the EU, climate change and beyond.

21% of the overall proposed budget for 2020 will go to tackle climate change. This aligns with the ambitious target of spending 20% of EU’s current long-term budget on activities that address climate change.

Investing in a competitive economy and young people

More than €83 billion in commitments will boost economic growth, European regions and will support young people. Of them:

• €13.2 billion for research and innovation across Europe under Horizon 2020 – the biggest and final tranche of the EU research and innovation programme (+6.4% compared to 2019) – including the final pilot phase of the European Innovation Council to support top-class innovators, small companies and scientists with the potential to scale up rapidly in Europe and globally;
• €2.8 billion for education under Erasmus+;
• €117 million for the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) to support young people living in regions where youth unemployment is high (bringing the total funding for YEI between 2014 and 2020 to €4.5 billion);
• €1.2 billion (+75% compared to 2019) for Europe’s own global satellite navigation system Galileo – to enable it to continue expanding its market uptake from the current 700 million users around the world to reach 1.2 billion by the end of 2020.;
• €255 million for the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP) to incentivise European companies to work together to develop defence products and technology. The EDIDP allows defence cooperation at EU level to be tested under this budget period until a fully-fledged European Defence Fund is in place as of 2021.

Strengthening security and solidarity in the EU and beyond

Many of Europe’s challenges know no borders. The EU has repeatedly used all flexibility in the budget to respond to disasters, address migration challenges and strengthen the EU’s external borders. By mobilising its various instruments, the 2020 EU budget will continue to invest in solidarity and security in Europe and beyond:

• €420.6 million (+34.6% compared to 2019) for the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) following the agreement reached by the European Parliament and the Council in March 2019 to set up a standing corps of 10 000 border guards by 2027;
• €156.2 million for the new rescEU programme (an upgrade of the existing Civil Protection Mechanism) to better respond to earthquakes, wildfires and other disasters. This will help to build up a reserve of response capacities at EU level, for example forest fighting planes and helicopters, as well as emergency medical capacities;
• €560 million for people in need inside Syria as well as refugees and their host communities in the region. This is the budgetary response to a pledge made at the Brussels III Conference on the future of Syria in 2019 (the EU budget for 2019 already foresees funding for Syria of €2.01 billion);
• Continued support for the development of the Entry-Exit System, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, the upgraded Schengen Information System and the European Fund for Sustainable Development, with the overall objective of making EU information systems more interoperable to keep EU citizens safe.

A budget enabling results

Making sure that every euro from the EU budget creates an added value for the EU citizens is a key priority for the Commission. This is also a key objective of the Commission proposal for EU’s next long term budget for the period 2021–2027.

Together with the draft budget, the Commission has today published a performance overview for each of the programmes financed by the EU budget. It shows that the EU budget is delivering concrete results for the people in the EU and beyond.

Background

The draft 2020 EU budget includes two amounts for each programme to be financed – commitments and payments. “Commitments” refers to the funding that can be agreed in contracts in a given year; “payments” to the money actually paid out. The proposed 2020 EU budget amounts to €168.3 billion in commitments (+1.3% compared to 2019) and €153.7 billion in payments (+3.5% compared to 2019).

The EU budget is primarily an investment budget. Amounting to roughly 1% of EU GNI, and representing around 2% of all EU public spending, it aims to complement national budgets and implement priorities which all EU members have agreed upon.

The 2020 EU budget is the last budget under EU’s current multiannual financial framework running between 2014 and 2020. The proposal is based on the assumption that the UK will participate fully in the implementation and financing of the 2020 EU budget as if it were a Member State.

The Commission published its proposals for the EU’s next long-term EU budget – which runs between 2021 and 2027 – in the spring of 2018. The 2020 budget and the long-term budget will be negotiated in parallel between the Member States and the newly elected European Parliament.