Amending budget 2/2019: Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+

The European Parliament adopted by 614 votes to 69, with 10 abstentions, a resolution approving the Council's position on Draft amending budget No 2/2019 of the European Union for the financial year 2019 – Reinforcement of key programmes for EU competitiveness: Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+.

Parliament took note of Draft amending budget No 2/2019 as submitted by the Commission, which is devoted to providing an additional EUR 100 million of commitment appropriations to Horizon 2020 and Erasmus+, to reflect the agreement reached between Parliament and the Council in the framework of the budget 2019 negotiations.

As a reminder, the Commission has proposed to allocate an additional EUR 80 million to reinforce Horizon 2020 and an additional EUR 20 million to Erasmus+ budget.

The objective of the draft amending budget is:

- to allocate to the Horizon 2020 programme (i) an additional amount of EUR 34.6 million to combat climate change, in particular batteries, green vehicles and the greening of aviation; (ii) an additional amount of EUR 45.4 million to increase resources for the themes “Breakthrough zero-emissions energy generation for full decarbonisation" and “Energy and climate change related technologies” topics;

- strengthen the core mobility activities in particular in the field of higher education and vocational education and training, as well as for centres of vocational excellence and strengthen European universities with a view to promoting excellence, innovation and inclusion in higher education in Europe.

Although it is not necessary to increase payment appropriations for Horizon 2020 by the end of 2019, Parliament has pointed out that the increased commitment appropriations for Erasmus+ will most probably need to be matched by increased payment appropriations still this year. It called on the Commission to inform the budgetary authority about how it intends to cover these increased payment needs.