(MENAFN- AFP) The European Union clinched a deal on a sharply trimmed 2014 budget Tuesday after a marathon 16-hour session into the wee hours ended a long dispute over spending taxpayers money.
After decades of growth, next year's EU budget is set to be around 7.0 percent lower than this year's at 135.5 billion euros ($181.5 billion) in contributions by member states.
"Sixteen hours but a happy end," said EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski after a night of negotiations to resolve a split over the budget between the bloc's three bodies -- the 28 members states, the European Parliament and the executive European Commission.
Austerity-minded governments had wanted to keep their payments under 135 billion euros, which was one billion and 1.5 billion euros less than sought by the EU executive and parliament, respectively.
"We have agreed to reinforce the financing of such priority areas as economic growth, jobs, innovation and humanitarian aid," said Algimantas Rimkunas, the deputy finance minister of Lithuania, which currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency.
Under the deal, some 62 billion euros, or the largest portion of the budget, will be allocated to programmes to stimulate growth and create jobs across the continent where over 12 percent of workers are on the dole.
Extra funding will go also to EU agencies dealing with migration, asylum and border control as well as to humanitarian aid, while administration costs will be cut by one percent as the EU moves to cut staff by 5.0 percent by 2017.
Ministers and lawmakers are now due to approve the new budget on November 19 and 20, paving the way for the European Parliament to adopt also next week the EU's long-term trillion-euro budget for 2014-2020.
A vote on the seven-year budget, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), was postponed to November 19 because of the row over the 2014 budget.
During the overnight haggling, ministers from Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden opposed a compromise offer to raise the 2014 ceiling by 500 million euros.
Reacting to the deal, Britain's eurosceptic UKIP leader Nigel Farage said the agreement showed Prime Minister David Cameron's government "has been outsmarted and outvoted again."
"I want to know why we are paying the EU any money at all?" Farage said in a statement.
Other MEPs were more nuanced.
Danish centrist Anne Jensen, who steered the budget through parliament, regretted "an austerity budget" while adding: "I am glad we managed to secure more funds for growth policies for research, education and innovation and for humanitarian aid in the Middle East."
Addressing shortfalls in the 2013 budget, the package deal also agreed on funds to help repair flood damage in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic as well as drought in Romania.
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