EP committee calls for radical changes to 2015 budget
© European Union 2014 - EP

EP committee calls for radical changes to 2015 budget

The European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) has released an “alarming” judgement on the 2015 EU budget.

In the ITRE Opinion on the Council position on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2015, presented to the Parliament’s Committee on Budgets, MEPs expressed “deep concern” over the Council of the European Union’s proposed cuts to innovation next year, an area the ITRE committee says needs “a significant and brave increase” in funding to help move beyond the economic crisis. According to the Committee, areas most likely to be affected include innovation in energy security, research, space and SMEs. The MEPs says the proposed cuts will also have a “potentially detrimental” impact on the EU’s competitiveness and growth.

The committee, led by rapporteur and former Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, said it was also “astonished” and “alarmed” that whilst the European Council was repeatedly emphasising the “importance of the EU budget in respect to growth and job creation”, national politicians were “cutting the EU budget in exactly these fields”.

MEPs also cited the importance of Horizon 2020 and COSME as “crucial for achieving the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy” and highlighted the value that these programmes can bring, stating that the 2015 budget will be “decisive” for the success of the programmes and that the programmes should be “scaled up” more quickly.

The committee further cited the importance of SMEs in the economic recovery, expecting the Commission to “fulfil its legal and budgetary commitments” regarding the SME Instrument, and is calling on the Council to help the EU institution achieve these aims. Furthermore, the committee calls on the Commission to establish a special budget especially for the SME Instrument from 2016 onwards.

Finally, the MEPs are calling for “appropriate funding” for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and underlined the importance of European space programmes Galileo and Copernicus.

The full opinion document from the ITRE committee can be read here.