EU budget for the future : any delay in adopting the EU budget will have consequences for citizens and businesses.
Date: 2018-06-19
Institutions: Directorate-General for Budget
Subjects: EU budget, adoption of the budget, economic consequence

EU BUDGET
FOR THE FUTURE 

#EUBudget  #EURoad2Sibiu  #FutureofEurope

14 February 2018

ANY DELAY IN ADOPTING THE EU BUDGET 
WILL HAVE CONSEQUENCES FOR CITIZENS 
AND BUSINESSES

The EU needs a new budget in time

to show that EU27 is united and ready to deliver on its positive political agenda

to give certainty for authorities, partners and beneficiaries of EU funding 

to allow for new programmes to start on 1 January 2021

to maintain the momentum of the economic recovery

WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME?

The current EU budget was adopted at least six months too late. This had consequences, for example:

MIGRATION

It  was  difficult  for  the  Greek  administration  to  use  EU  funding  to  prepare  for  the  migration  crisis  in  2015  - 
shelters were not ready and conditions to receive refugees were poor

Other Member States, including Sweden and Austria, did not have EU funding to help accommodate people 
coming through the Balkan route

ERASMUS+: around 25-30,000 exchanges between students and teachers from our Member States and our 
partner countries planned for 2014 could not take place.

 
Sharp fall in the EU budget commitments in 2014 due also to delayed adoption of the budget

% of EU Gross National Income (GNI)

1.20%

1.15%

1.10%

1.05%

1.00%

0.95%

0.90%

0.85%

2000-2006 
average 1.09%

2007-2013 
average 1.12%

2014-2020 
average 1.03%

EU budget 
commitment ceilings

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES OF A DELAY 
IN ADOPTING THE EU BUDGET

ERASMUS+: As many as 1,000,000 young people (for the whole programme) would not be able to benefit from an 
Erasmus+ exchange in 2021.

RESEARCH:

loss of around 5,000 research jobs per month (3-4% of overall EU research jobs)  

loss of additional 7,000 jobs in the wider economy

loss of around 200 research publications 

COHESION: over 100,000 EU-funded projects (e.g. business support, energy efficiency, healthcare, education, social 
inclusion) would not be able to start on time

INFRASTRUCTURE: space programmes like Galileo or Copernicus have long investment cycles and need predictability 
when it comes to procurements. Several other infrastructure projects due to be completed by the end of the next EU 
Budget cycle would also be strongly impacted if there were delays:

Construction on the high-speed rail link Rail Baltica which will connect the 5 million people in the Baltic States 
to the rest of Europe and cater for freight flows from Finland to Germany, the Benelux and the Adriatic 

The Brenner base tunnel, which aims to shift half of the 2.2 million trucks of the Brenner motorway to rail and  
will cut down on pollution in the valleys between Munich-Innsbruck and Verona

The Fehmarn Belt between Denmark and Germany

The Evora-Merida railway link that will connect Lisbon and Madrid

The Lyon-Torino base tunnel that will connect the high-speed railway networks of France and Italy

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