European Parliament
Georgios Papanikolaou  (PPE ),
in writing.
(EL)
According to the Commission’s proposal, a surplus of EUR 1.49 billion should be entered in the 2012 budget, diminishing by the same amount the global contribution of Member States to the EU budget and relieving the pressure – albeit slightly – on national budgets, especially of those countries under serious financial pressure. Nonetheless, the European Parliament opposes the unilateral decision by the Council to reduce spending on research by more than two thirds on the grounds of low take-up and under-performance of the programme, for obvious reasons. This point and the European Parliament’s reaction are clearly underlined in this report, which I voted in favour of.

