The European Parliament has achieved a notable success in squeezing another €16 billion into the EU’s six-year budget.
This was done in the teeth of opposition from the European Council, who presented a more modest deal during the summer.
That Budget has to be ratified first by the M.E.Ps, which was the lever that made the difference according to Ireland South M.E.P. Sean Kelly who says “I think the Parliament showed that it takes muscle, we have succeeded through negotiations in getting 16 billion extra, now some of this is significant for Ireland, we got over 4billion for research, we also got an extra 2.2 billion for Erasmus, that’s where students go abroad to study, and that actually means an extra million students able to avail of Erasmus over next couple of years”.
