(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) BRUSSELS, Nov 18 (KUNA) -- The EU Council of Ministers, who represent the 28 EU member states, and the European Parliament reached agreement early Saturday on an EU budget for 2018.
"The Council has a budget framework for 2018. The budget framework provides adequate resources for EU activities and policies. It also shows that EU institutions can work together," Mart Kivine, deputy finance minister of Estonia and chief Council negotiator for the 2018 EU budget told a news conference. Estonia holds the current EU Presidency.
Total commitments are set at 160.1 billion euro (USD 188.7 billion) and payments at 144.7 billion euro (USD 170.6 billion). "The 2018 budget focuses strongly on priorities such as boosting economic growth and job creation, strengthening security and addressing the challenges posed by migration," he added.
On his part, Siegrfied MURESAN, Vice chair committee on budgets for the European Parliament told the joint press conference that "after 16 hours of negotiations the Council and the European Parliament have agreed on a budget for the EU for 2018. So the good news of this morning is that the EU has a budget for 2018 and this corresponds to the expectation of the people." He also said that they have decided to cut the funds in the EU budget next year for Turkey by 105 million euro (USD 123.8 billion) and to freeze another 70 million euro, (USD 82.5 billion) because as he argued "Turkey is drifting away from European standards." (end) nk.mt
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