The European Parliament passed the budget worth 126.5
billion euros, 2.9 percent more than this year, after a long tussle with the
EU's 27 member states.
Legislators had initially demanded a 6.2 percent rise, but
backed down under pressure from governments, which said EU spending must not
grow by so much when many countries are making deep cuts at home to ward off a
sovereign debt crisis.
Negotiations between legislators and governments also
stalled for weeks over demands for the Parliament to have more power in
determining future EU budget-making. Those demands were met only partially and
in a non-binding way.
"Thanks to today's decision we will avoid a provisional
budget, which would slow down the execution of EU policies, mainly agriculture
and regional aid," Sidonia Jedrzejewska of Poland, the Parliament's lead
negotiator, said in a statement.
Without a budget deal, next year's spending would have been
the same as in 2010 and disbursed in 12 equal installments. Some programs would
have been denied funding, such as the EU's fledgling diplomatic service, new
bodies to supervise financial markets, and a nuclear fusion project.
The Parliament's vote settled a dispute over EU spending for
now, but battle will be joined next year when governments open negotiations on
the bloc's next long-term budget, which will run from 2014 and may last seven
or 10 years.
"It is quite obvious that the minority of net-paying EU
countries with euroskeptic governments want the EU budget to be cut at all
costs," said Goran Farm, a Swedish socialist member of the European Parliament.
"This is only the first shot in a bigger battle to
come. If the council wants to slash the EU budget, we will face permanent
trench warfare. We are not going to accept that."
Britain and the Netherlands have been the strongest
advocates of EU budget cuts.
An EU diplomat said Britain would like the see long-term
spending frozen at the current level in real terms, which would mean cuts when
taking into account economic growth and inflation.
"Clearly our objective will be to push for the same
restraint on the budget for the next financial perspective that we've been
pushing for the budget next year," said British Prime Minister David
Cameron's budget spokesman.
Britain's stance worries poorer EU countries from central
and eastern Europe — the main beneficiaries of the bloc's regional aid funds,
which finance road construction, environmental clean-up, job training and other
projects.
The EU's costly farm subsidies will be another contentious
issue in the debate. They will be defended by France, their major recipient.
Britain is also set to defend its rebate from EU coffers won by former Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984.
