Europe Adopts Austerity Budget

Lawmakers in Brussels have reached a last-ditch deal on the European Union’s (EU) 2014 budget after 16 hours of talks, cutting spending by nearly 6 percent from last year.

Spending will total 135.5 billion euros ($181.6 billion) for next year – 0.5 billion euros less than the Commission proposed and 0.9 billion euros short of what the European Parliament had wanted.

But member states, hit with austerity measures at home, had been calling for a bigger slash to spending. The 2014 EU budget is 0.5 billion euros above what they sought.

“I’m glad that we could reach an agreement with the European Parliament on the financing of priority areas such as growth, employment, innovation and humanitarian aid,” said Algimantas Rimkunas, deputy finance minister for Lithuania, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

via CNBC

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