The European Parliament’s budgets committee has given the green light to an extra €150 million ($207 million) for the European Commission’s most urgent humanitarian aid and food assistance needs, and a further €37 million for its democracy and human rights instrument.
The sum will allow the Commission to pay its most urgent bills, but according to lawmakers, payment problems in the EU external action field are likely to recur in the course of this year.
As explained by MEPs last week, the additional funds are taken from the budget lines for pre-accession assistance (€45 million), development cooperation with Latin America and Asia (€74 million), the emergency aid reserve (€50 million), the neighborhood instrument (€10 million) and the nuclear safety cooperation instrument (€8 million).