23-27 October European Parliament plenary session

MEPS discussed the EU's proposed budget for 2001. They turned down a move to reject the proposals agreed by the Council of Ministers entirely but voted to spend 1 billion euro more than the figure suggested by the Council. The biggest area of disagreement between member states and the European Parliament related to foreign policy and, in particular, funding for the MEDA programme to aid Mediterranean countries, the Balkans and Serbia. The assembly called for increases in external relations spending of 180 million euro, including an extra 20 million euro to nurture democracy in Yugoslavia. Member states and MEPs will now have to negotiate a compromise before the end of December.