Economic growth and job creation will remain key EU priorities together with migration issues and climate change, as MEPs are preparing the EU’s draft 2018 budget. The budget “must be equipped with the tools to enable it to respond to multiple crises simultaneously” and must also address EU citizens’ safety and security concerns, the Parliament said. The general rapporteur for the EU Budget 2018, Siegfried Muresan, commented that two political priorities were growth and jobs and number two was security. Mr. Muresan suggested that the EU should “invest more in entrepreneurs, especially highly innovative entrepreneurs”.
The EU Parliament underlined that the youth unemployment is a key EU concern that “it puts at risk an entire generation of young Europeans”. MEPs therefore call for adequate funding to continue the Youth Employment Initiative and increase financial support for the Erasmus+ student exchange program. In terms of security, Mr. Muresan proposed to strengthen the agencies of the Union, which have responsibilities in the area of justice and home affairs: Frontex, EASO, Europol and Eurojust.
Regarding the external dimension, more cooperation is needed to work side-by-side with the EU’s eastern neighborhood and those countries that have embarked on a pro-European path. “We also need to stand by the countries in our southern neighborhood, Northern Africa and the Middle East. These are countries of origin or countries of transit for refugees, and it is for us much cheaper, it is politically easier and it is safer for the Union to support refugees in their countries of origin”, Mr. Muresan added.
