EU Council approves European budget for 2024

This Monday, the Council of the European Union (EU) gave the ‘green light’ to the EU’s annual budget for 2024, with 189.4 billion euros in commitments, in order to safeguard community priorities and have a margin for “ respond to unforeseen circumstances.”

In a statement, the EU Council announced that it “approved on Monday the common draft on the general EU budget for 2024. The common draft was agreed in negotiations with the European Parliament on 11 November. Total commitments are set at 189,385.4 million euros and total payments at 142,630.3 million euros.”

The Spanish Secretary of State and main negotiator of the Council for the EU budget for 2024, Esperanza Samblás, cited in the note, highlights that this agreement allows the Union to “concentrate on priority areas, while maintaining a sufficient financial margin to respond to circumstances unforeseen.”

The main negotiator states that this budget “also ensures a realistic approach, taking into account the current economic and geopolitical context, the interests of taxpayers and the need to face the new challenges that may arise in 2024”.

According to the EU Council, 360 million euros are still available under the maximum expenditure limits of the current multiannual financial framework for 2021-2027, so that the EU can “react to unpredictable needs”.

“Next year’s budget strongly reflects the EU’s main priorities, including economic recovery and ecological and digital transitions, and reacts to the current difficult geopolitical context”, concludes the organization.

“While authorizations are legally binding promises to spend money on activities that are carried out over several years, payments cover expenses arising from authorizations granted during the current year or in previous years.

The final approval from the European Parliament is now missing.

This is the fourth annual budget under the EU’s long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027, and is complemented by funds from the Covid-19 Post-Crisis Recovery Fund.