ECR Budget Spokesman Bernd Koelmel has criticised a budget vote in the European Parliament today as a "patchwork of maximum demands without a clear focus". The Parliament was laying down its position on the EU's next long term budget ahead of negotiations with the Council of Ministers.

Parliament’s budget vote is a patchwork of high demands with no clear focus on real challenges ahead

ECR Budget Spokesman Bernd Koelmel has criticised a budget vote in the European Parliament today as a “patchwork of maximum demands without a clear focus”.

The Parliament was laying down its position on the EU’s next long term budget ahead of negotiations with the Council of Ministers. In the parliamentary debate, Koelmel had already pointed out that the discussions on the future of the European Union initiated by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker a year and a half ago had scarcely taken place in the European public. Koelmel has as said that the European Parliament is again “making a push without knowing which EU vision will be supported by the European citizens at all”.

He continued:

“If you do not know what the Future of Europe will be how can you possibly know how to fund it? No such discussion has taken place in Member States and if you do not know which vision of the EU has a majority you cannot surely plan funding for it for the next seven years.

“Summarising all the demands of the EP would cost the European taxpayer almost € 200 billion more than the Commission’s proposal in the next seven years. There clearly needs to be more focus on where our priorities are – that should mean more resources to tackling the migration crisis and putting more emphasis on investment and innovation.”