(Sir Europe - Brussels) - The Commission’s draft budget for 2013 - which is now to be approved by the Council and the European Parliament - includes €62.5 billion in investments to stimulate growth and employment in Europe. This is the biggest budget item, accounting for 46.7% of the overall budget. The Commission says: “A particular effort has been made towards the Research Framework Programmes (€9.0 billion, 28.1% increase on 2012), the competitiveness and innovation programmes, structural and cohesion funds, as well as life long learning”. €50 billion, that is, 40% of the budget would go to agriculture and the preservation and management of natural resources. “It is legitimate for people to wonder why we call for a 6.8% increase in payments in these times of crisis”, says Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski. “There are two reasons for this: first, 2013 is the last year of the current financial period and the last year of each financial period always sees a sharp increase in payments as EU-funded projects across Europe reach completion: bridges, railways, motorways have been built for the greater good of all, now we must pay the bills for them”. (continued)

“Second - Commissioner Lewandowski continues -, in recent years the Member States within the Council and the European Parliament have adopted EU budgets that were well below our estimated needs for payments. This has led to a ‘snowballing effect’ of unpaid bills as each year we could not honour some of our legal commitments due to shortages of funds. When your electricity or water bill arrives - the Polish commissioner says -, you must pay it even if you seek savings”. Italian MEP Giovanni La Via, European Parliament’s Rapporteur for the 2013 EU General Budget, also comments on the Commission’s proposal. “I hope that the proposed budget will allow EU projects to continue without difficulty. This is why we asked the European Commission to make a realistic proposal for payments. This proposal looks sufficient even though it is below our requests”. “To recover from the crisis, I am convinced that we need ‘more Europe’ not ‘less Europe’. Therefore I don‘t agree totally on this proposal. We need a stronger commitment to find effective ways to get back to growth and job creation that are the priorities agreed by all three European Institutions”.