The Socialists and Democrats secured EU funding for 2023 in a number of key policy areas which of are of utmost importance to European citizens. A vote in the European Parliament’s plenary today in Strasbourg sealed the political deal reached by the negotiators from the European Parliament, member states and the Commission.

The S&D Group pushed for additional resources for energy-related issues and managed to obtain an additional 155,5 million euros for energy, now one of the most pressing issues for our citizens.

The consequences of the Russian invasion, felt in Ukraine and Moldova as well as within our Union, will be tackled with 315 million euros supplementary to what the European Commission initially proposed.

The deal also means Europeans will have at their disposal an additional 123 million euros for the EU’s programmes to support education, training, youth, sport and Erasmus+ thanks to the efforts of the S&D Group in the negotiation process.

Victor Negrescu, MEP, S&D negotiator on EU budget 2023 for policies, said:

“After tough negotiations, we reached an agreement with member states and the European Commission literally minutes before the deadline. If we had failed to reach this agreement, the funding needed to ensure the proper functioning of the EU would have been put at risk.

“I am very proud we didn’t only save the EU budget from unacceptable cuts in key policy areas, but we also achieved its overall increase by 687 million euros in comparison to the initial proposal by the Commission.

“I am very satisfied that our group secured important increases in energy-related envelopes, but also an additional 10 million euros more for the Single Market Programme to further support our SMEs that are dealing with high inflation and exorbitant energy prices.

“Our group believes Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia’s entrance to the Schengen area of free movement without border controls has to be supported, and we managed to include 10 million euros more for this purpose in next year’s EU budget."

“Connectivity was also among the top priorities for our group and here, we achieved 118 million euros more than what was initially planned for the transport sector. As we live in an ever more turbulent world, the S&D Group is convinced that we have to put extra efforts in our relations with our neighbours. In this sense, the increase we obtained for the EU’s Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument is a major success for our group - 210 million euros more for the Eastern Neighbourhood and 70 million euros more for the Southern Neighbourhood.

“The S&D Group’s negotiation team not only managed to convince the other EU institutions, but also other political groups within the Parliament to support our priorities. We are convinced that the increases obtained during the negotiation process will go a long way to help our citizens and households in dealing with the cost-of-living increase, while at the same time, supporting Ukraine and our neighbours in dealing with the horrible consequences of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.