Finland expressed its disapproval and abstained from voting – nevertheless, an agreement was reached on the EU budget

On Saturday, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached an agreement on the Union’s budget for next year.

The total amount of the budget is approximately EUR 199.4 billion. The EU will commit to these allocations during the next year, but some of them will be paid later.

The payment appropriations total approximately EUR 155.2 billion. The EU will pay them next year.

Finland’s contribution to next year’s EU budget is around 2.2 billion euros.

Although an agreement was reached on the budget, Finland disagreed and abstained from voting on the budget “on the basis of an overall consideration”.

According to Finland’s view, the budget should have had more room for maneuver for unforeseen expenses. In addition, different funding needs should have been prioritized more strongly than is currently done.

Finland found it regrettable, among other things, that in order to cover administrative expenses, they had to rely on the use of special budget instruments instead of reallocating expenses. The special instruments of the budget have to be resorted to after the expenses of the respective budget category have been used.

Finland would have hoped that the EU would have had more room for maneuver in next year’s budget, so that future crises can be better prepared.

The budget agreement still needs to be approved by both the Parliament and the Council within 14 days.