2014 draft EU budget

The Commission has adopted the draft budget 2014 amounting to €142.01 billion in commitment appropriations and €135.9 billion in payment appropriations. The 2014 draft budget is some 6% lower than this year's for both commitments and payments.

The Commission has prepared the 2014 draft budget based on the latest stage of the current MFF negotiations. The 2014 amount is based on the condition that the additional budget resources to cover the payment needs in 2013 as proposed by the Commission are agreed on time in 2013. In the meantime, and despite cuts, the draft 2014 budget shows a 3.3% increase in commitments in the «Competitiveness for growth and jobs» area (heading 1a) as the EU's reduced resources must focus on measures to tackle unemployment and generate growth. These include Horizon 2020 – the EU's new funding programme for research and innovation (almost €9bn), the Youth Employment Initiative (€3.6 billion), the Connecting Europe Facility (close to €2bn) and support measures for Europe's businesses, in particular from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The Commission also proposes a 1.1% cut in discretionary areas of its own administrative expenditure. The 2014 draft budget amounts to 1.05% of the EU GNI in commitments (against 1.15% in budget 2013) and 1.01% of it in payments (1.1% in 2013). In other words, as it is a smaller percentage of the annual wealth produced by the Member States it represents a significant cut in both relative and absolute terms.

Источники:
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/biblio/documents/2014/2014_en.cfm
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/documents/2014/DB2014_Press_Presentation_extended_en.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/documents/2014/DB2014_Press_Presentation_en.pdf