Deal struck on 2013 budget

€6bn to be added to 2012 budget; commitments for 2013 set at €150.9bn.

Negotiators from the European Parliament said today that they had reached an agreement with representatives from the Council of Ministers on the European Union’s budget for 2013. The deal also includes revisions to the budget for 2012.

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The agreement is to add €6 billion to the budget for 2012 (instead of the €9bn that the European Commission had proposed) and a budget for 2013 of €150.9bn in commitments and €132.8bn in payments (instead of €151.1bn and €137.8bn as the Commission had proposed).

The deal was concluded between MEPs and Cyprus, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council. The terms will be presented to a meeting of member states’ ambassadors to the EU tomorrow and then to the European Parliament’s budgets committee on Monday (3 December).

The ambassadors will be asked to give their approval to the deal next Wednesday (5 December), before the Council’s final approval at the meeting of justice and home affairs ministers the next day.

If it clears all those hurdles, the budget will be put to a vote of the entire Parliament on 13 December. Without such approval at the last plenary session of 2012, the EU would be forced to fall back for 2013 on a budget of provisional twelfths, ie, a monthly figure derived from the budget for the previous year, adjusted for inflation.

With the clock ticking, the two sides held an inconclusive round of talks last night and a further round of negotiations today.

Earlier attempts by the Council and MEPs to agree a budget had foundered, particularly over the draft amending budget for 2012. Conciliation talks ended in failure on 13 November, forcing the Commission to re-submit a draft budget on Monday of this week (26 November).