Budget 2013 - MEPs respond too timidly to Council's slash and burn delusion

Following today's vote by MEPs on parliament's position on Council's 2013 EU budget proposal, Portuguese GUE/NGL MEP Alda Sousa said Parliament's response was "too timid and inadequate".

"We must challenge the twisted logic of austerity. While we welcome that Parliament will try to reverse some of the cuts, such as those to the 7th Framework Programme, Erasmus Mundus, or Intelligent Energy, and aims to strengthen some of the Commission's proposals, such as aid to Palestine (which had been cut by the Council), MEPs must be more ambitious."

"Council is seeking to slash and burn, particularly in European research programmes, education and training, regional development and cohesion funds. This budget is based on the same austerity logic that has been imposed on European citizens and which have led to increased unemployment, precarious work, and undermining of rights."

"Budgets should follow a redistributive logic, but increasingly blackmail is being used by several countries who assume that their contributions are more worthy than others meaning they try to directly interfere in other Member States" Sousa said, defending the immediate creation and implementation of a fee on financial transactions.

"The European Parliament, as the only democratically elected institution in the EU must be the most powerful voice in defence of European citizens and the promotion of solidarity, not of recession and inequality".

Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20