Van Rompuy to present the EU budget at the European Parliament

The president of the European Council Herman van Rompuy will appear before the European Parliament Monday inorder to present the agreement on the 2014-2020 EU budget, estimated for 959 billion euros. Meanwhile, the president of the European Parliament Martin Schulz declared that the budget is not centered on the common interest of Europe as a whole.

Shultz argued in an article written for the Financial Times that the budget rather tends to the needs of the 27 Member States rather than to the common interest of Europe as a whole. That is why he said that the European Parliament would act in a responsible way in order to make sure that the interest of Europe comes first.

He argued that in the current crisis situation the budget should not be cut (959 billion euros versus 984 billion euros of the present budget for the period of 2007-2013) in order to respond to the demands of all the countries.

Finally, Shultz asked to revise the distribution of the particular items in the budget in order to allocate more funds to education, training, research and foreign affairs and requested an obligatory clause which would permit the revision of the budget after a 2-3 year period.