Ahead of the European Council meeting on 13 and 14 December 2018, the Commission is taking stock of the encouraging progress made so far in the negotiations of the EU’s next long-term budget and urging Leaders to keep up the momentum.
With the European Council meeting being a crucial moment to consolidate the good progress already made and to provide direction on the key features of the future framework, the Commission today is publishing a Communication with the objective to facilitate the discussion among Leaders.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: “Leaders have agreed together on the Union‘s priorities. We need to ensure that those priorities are adequately funded in the next long-term budget so that they become reality. I am encouraged by the amount of progress reached so far. Based on this progress, it is now the moment for Leaders to provide the necessary political guidance which paves the way for rapid agreement on the next long-term budget.”
Commissioner in charge of Budget and Human Resources, Günther H. Oettinger said: “Thanks to the excellent work of the Bulgarian and Austrian Presidencies, unprecedented progress has already been made in negotiating the EU’s next long-term budget. In parallel, work in the European Parliament has also moved forward. Let’s keep this momentum and make further progress based on the political steer that the European Council will provide later this month.”
Leaders are now invited to give political guidancewith regard to the key features of the future long-term budget that Europe needs. In line with the Commission proposal from 2 May 2018, this should be a modern, balanced, flexible and fair budget that can deliver on Europe’s priorities.
