Commitment appropriations for the Youth Employment Initiative; resources for the Investment for growth and jobs goal

The European Parliament adopted 582 votes to 51, with 32 abstentions, a legislative resolution on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 as regards the resources for economic, social and territorial cohesion and correcting that Regulation as regards the resources for the Investment for growth and jobs goal.

The European Parliament adopted its position at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure without making any amendments to the Commission's proposal.

As a reminder, the proposal to amend the Regulation laying down common provisions applicable to the European Structural and Investment Funds (‘ESI Fund’) concerns the financing of the Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) in 2018.

The present proposal seeks to frontload some of the 2020 appropriations for the YEI to 2018. An increase in the budgetary means for the YEI in 2018 was agreed in the budgetary negotiations for 2018. The increase is considerable, namely by an amount of EUR 116.7 million, which brings the total YEI budget for 2018 to EUR 350 million.

The amount of commitment appropriations for 2020 needs to be adjusted downwards accordingly to reflect the frontloading to 2018.

The resources for economic, social and territorial cohesion available for budgetary commitment for the period 2014-2020 shall be EUR 329 982 345 366 in 2011 prices, in accordance with the annual breakdown set out in Annex VI, of which EUR 325 938 694 233 represents the global resources allocated to the ERDF, the ESF and the Cohesion Fund and EUR 4 043 651 133 represents a specific allocation for the YEI.