Brussels, November 17, 2016 – Bernd Koelmel, budgetary spokesman of the ECR Group in the European Parliament today criticised the European Institutions’ unwillingness to save money and an inadequate priority setting in the decisions made on the EU-budget for 2017.

This night, Council, Commission and European Parliament agreed to increase the EU-budget to 157.9 billion Euro, hereby raising it by 1.7 per cent in comparison to the previous year. Bernd Koelmel: “For a recovery of the EU a dismantling of EU-structures would be necessary. This has unfortunately not yet been realised.”

The reduction of payments by 1.6 per cent to 134.49 billion Euro, that has also been agreed on, is due to difficulties in the realisation of programmes within the European cohesion policy. For Koelmel it is foreseeable that the existing gap of 23.5 billion Euro between promised payments and available budgetary resources will inevitably lead to unpaid bills in the following years.

“Every year higher expenses are suggested by the Commission and the big parties of the Parliament, and Council and the ECR group are trying to curb them”, says Koelmel. The ECR-group had suggested a reduction of over 500 million Euro earlier, which had been rejected by the other parliamentary groups.

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