The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached an agreement on 14 November on the general budget of the European Union for 2023. The European Parliament’s negotiating team, which included MEP Victor Negrescu as shadow rapporteur for the Social Democrat Group, secured €687.3 million more than the initial proposal.

Overall, Member States and the European Parliament agreed on a budget for next year of €186.6 billion, an increase of 1.1% on the previous budget, including also funding for important priorities for Romania.

According to Victor Negrescu, some of the additional funded priorities are: €155.5 million to tackle the energy crisis and to develop the energy sector; €10 million to support SMEs; €10 million to protect external borders, including Romania’s accession to the Schengen area; €210 million for the Eastern Partnership, including the Republic of Moldova; €118 million for the European transport programme; €123 million for education and youth.

“Romania can take advantage of these new opportunities to access these amounts at European level and to help citizens and SMEs to overcome the challenges and crises we are going through”, said the Romanian MEP.

In previous sessions of budgetary talks, MEP Victor Negrescu, rapporteur for the S&D Group in the European Parliament on the general budget of the European Union for 2023, called for the inclusion of three priorities for Romania in the draft budget proposed by the Parliament: funds for Romania’s accession to the Schengen area, additional resources for the Republic of Moldova and for the projects delayed by the war in Ukraine or affected by the current context.