The European Union’s finances for next year are in limbo, after the 28 member states and the European Parliament failed to reach an agreement on the Union’s budget for 2015. Humanitarian and development nongovernmental organizations worry that funding for programs in the field may grind to a halt if no solution is found in the coming weeks.
At midnight Monday, a deadline passed without agreement between EU governments — represented by the European Council — and the parliament on a budget for next year. Where the European Commission — the EU’s executive arm — had proposed a 142 billion euro ($178.1 billion) budget, the EU-28 wanted to cut it down to 140 billion euros, while the parliament aimed to raise it to 146 billion euros to include a higher budget for humanitarian aid and other expenditures.
“During challenging times for Europe, negotiations on the EU budget have proven difficult to close,” Kristalina Georgieva, the Commission’s vice president for the budget, said in a terse statement. “A lot of progress had been made, but there are still some issues to resolve.”
About the author
Diederik Kramers@DiederikKramers
Diederik Kramers is a freelance correspondent in Brussels covering EU and NATO affairs. A former spokesperson and communications officer for UNICEF and UNHCR, he previously worked as foreign desk and Eastern Europe editor for the Dutch press agency ANP and as editor-in-chief of the Dutch quarterly Ukraine Magazine.
