On the General budget of the European Union for the financial year 2027 – all sections

The Committee on Culture and Education calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its motion for a resolution:

1.Reiterates its long-standing position that the Erasmus+, Creative Europe and European Solidarity Corps programmes need an adequate budget in the final year of the current programming period to achieve their full potential and set the tone for the next MFF; in that context, deplores the Council’s cuts to those programmes in its reading of the 2027 draft budget, amounting to EUR 159 million, EUR 31.6 million and EUR 0.18 million respectively; stresses that any reduction would be detrimental to the programmes’ smooth functioning and would jeopardise their proven contribution to the priorities of the Union;

2.Strongly deplores the Commission’s attempt to cut Erasmus+ funding compared to the original financial programming to create additional unallocated margin in heading 2b; believes that financing other priorities cannot come at the expense of mobility of young people in the most successful and recognizable Union programme; in line with the joint declaration by the Parliament, the Council and the Commission from 2020 and with the Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 December 2020 on budgetary discipline, on cooperation in budgetary matters and on sound financial management, as well as on new own resources, including a roadmap towards the introduction of new own resources, according to which expenditures covering the financing costs of NextGeneration EU shall aim at not reducing Union programmes and funds, demands the return of all funds recovered from the pandemic period – EUR 357 million recovered in 2024, 2025 and 2026 – to the programme’s largest strand, with funds for learning mobility implemented via national agencies;

3.Calls for an additional increase of EUR 50 million to the largest strand of Erasmus+, which has the biggest absorption capacity due to oversubscription, in line with the political commitment to better include smaller organisations and people with fewer opportunities, as well as to take into account inflation and rising living costs;

4.Proposes modest but important increases to the strands of Erasmus+ dedicated to youth and sport, by EUR 5 million and EUR 3 million respectively; underlines the need to keep those strands strong, due to their high demand and oversubscription;

5.Stresses the need for a reinforcement of the European Solidarity Corps by EUR 5 million in order to help that small programme have an even bigger impact by offering more volunteering and solidarity activities, promoting community resilience and youth-led responses to crises, including the war in Ukraine;

6.Insists on realistic increases to all three strands of Creative Europe, the Union’s only programme dedicated to the cultural and creative sectors, set at EUR 7 million for the Culture strand, EUR 5 million for the Media strand, and EUR 3 million for the cross-sectoral strand; reiterates that a robust Creative Europe is important to help the audiovisual sector and its ability to reach audiences across borders, to protect media freedom and ensure citizens’ access to reliable information, as well as to help deliver the objectives of the Culture Compass for Europe and the newly signed Joint Declaration “Europe for Culture, Culture for Europe”;

7.Recognizes the role of pilot projects and preparatory actions (PPPAs) as important tools for the Members of the European Parliament to test new initiatives; supports therefore the CULT PPPAs that receive grades A and B in the assessment procedure.