The Romanian MEP proposes solutions to support farmers and finance the challenges of cohesion, migration, health and education

Victor Negrescu, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for the European Union budget for 2025, gave a first overview of the institution’s guidelines on the allocation of financial resources. The document presented to fellow MEPs in the Committee on Budgets brings to the fore a budgetary perspective that responds to the needs of European citizens while reflecting solutions to urgent problems such as the support for agriculture, the need for more inclusive policies and the effective implementation of European programmes aimed at ensuring that common resources contribute to raising living standards. It also stresses the importance of addressing global issues such as the war in Ukraine and border crisis management.

A people-centered budget

Negrescu thus underlined the European Parliament’s commitment to “a people-centered budget” that is resilient, flexible, and robust in order to have a positive impact on European citizens. He noted that the proposed guidelines have been drafted in a difficult context, given the upcoming elections and revisions to the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). In addition, the Parliament faces “limited possibilities to request increases for the different programmes” and “the danger of potential cuts that could come from the Council in the context of the negotiations on the MFF revision” and debt payments, which could also affect existing programmes. However, Negrescu made it “very clear that the European Parliament does not agree with any cuts” and the institution’s perspective offers different alternative solutions to the challenges we face today. At the same time, he said that “we must be selective and pragmatic in defending the European Parliament’s priorities”.

“So we really need to focus on the challenges of today, such as cohesion, investment reforms, rights and values, migration, health and education, humanitarian aid and, of course, the issue of farmers and, in particular, the issue of young farmers. So we have organised the text along these clear ideas and guidelines,” said the rapporteur.

According to Victor Negrescu, the guideline document is divided into five sections.

In the first part of the guidelines, the focus lies on investing in actions to improve the livelihood of citizens, mentioning the relevance of the Recovery Plan in the context of actions taken and forthcoming to manage inflation and economic challenges.

The social dimension as a cross-cutting principle

In the second part of the guidelines, clear references are introduced to the idea that the social dimension should be a cross-cutting principle which will be reflected not only in the individual European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) programme, but also in the various European Union actions, as regards Erasmus Plus, for which there is already a proposal approved by Parliament to this effect.

The guidelines also address the importance of education, focusing on reducing skills shortages, supporting young entrepreneurs, and improving training programmes.

EU strategic priorities

The third part of the guideline document addresses strategic priorities, including the digital and environmental dimension, agricultural challenges, and the open strategic autonomy. In this context, Negrescu called for clarity in communicating the added value of the different programmes and in addressing the issue of lack of resources, for example to deal with crises in different areas, when it comes to disasters, but also when it comes to crises in agriculture.

The EU global dimension

The fourth section of the guidelines focuses on strengthening the EU’s global dimension, covering security and defence, migration resilience policy, external border security, European action in the Southern and Eastern Neighbourhood, pre-accession support, the Ukraine Facility, growing humanitarian needs and the need for a balanced approach to the different regions of the world.

In this context, rapporteur Victor Negrescu said that “we have tried to integrate in the text a language that has already been approved by the Parliament, in order not to create divisions between the different political groups”. “We want a strong voice of the European Parliament, and my call, as rapporteur for the different political groups, is to try as much as possible to avoid creating a debate on foreign policy in a report on the EU budget”, he added.

Implementing EU programmes and speeding up budget execution

Finally, Negrescu spoke about the need to boost the implementation of European programmes. He highlighted concerns about the low implementation rate and the significant unspent funds from previous programmes.

“I must remind you all that at the end of last year the overall implementation rate stood at 2.9%, according to the Commission reports, so for the 2021-2027 operational programmes. We also have almost 10% of the 2014-2020 programmes still unspent. We are talking about €40 billion and we believe that we need to boost absorption, speed up budget execution, but also the European Parliament needs to ensure that the money will continue to be used at European level, hopefully through our programmes managed at EU level or by Member States,” said the rapporteur for the 2025 budget.

The guidelines also propose solutions for speeding up budget implementation, ensuring continued use of funds to reduce regional disparities and promote cohesion.

Efforts to adopt budget guidelines by March

According to Victor Negrescu, MEPs have until 1 February to table amendments.

“We have already planned several meetings with the shadow rapporteurs. We hope that we will not have so many and that we can reach a compromise as soon as possible. Technical meetings are also planned,” he said. “And if all goes well, sometime in March, hopefully in early March, we will adopt the guidelines in the Committee on Budgets and then in the plenary, so I am open to discussions. I already appreciate the involvement of the shadow rapporteurs and I am confident that we are able to present strong guidelines before the elections, which will show the unity of the European Parliament and which will reflect the different positions we have had in previous years on many of the budgetary issues,” the MEP added.

He also said that “we will try to call for a coherent and cooperative approach and really build these guidelines together to avoid what happened last year, when unfortunately, we failed to agree on the guidelines”. “It would be a mistake, an error, if Parliament were to go in the same direction. That is why we prefer this balanced approach from the outset, which we hope will strengthen the Parliament’s position in the current context”, concluded Victor Negrescu.

MEP Victor Negrescu has been, in the last three years, the S&D Group responsible for the European budget. The European Parliament’s guidelines for the 2025 European budget will be voted in March in the Budgets Committee and in the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg.