Ten days after the unsuccessful end of the conciliation period over next year's EU budget, the European Commission is presenting a new Draft Budget for 2013.
The new proposal takes into account elements to facilitate convergence between the European Parliament and the Council as well as the imperative need to Honor past commitments, the Commission said in a press release on Monday.
The revised level of commitment appropriations is set at EUR 151 billion. Total payment appropriations amount to EUR 137.8 billion. The original draft budget amount was EUR 137.9 billion.
"The bulk of the EU budget consists of payments or reimbursements to hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries across Europe such as towns and regions, students, medical researchers, NGOs and businesses. At the beginning of the current financial period, national governments selected projects to be co-funded by the EU; now those projects are reaching completion and the EU will have to pay those bills. Our new proposal should help the Council (Member-States) and the European Parliament agree on a budget by the end of the year," RTT cites EU Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget Janusz Lewandowski said.
