Budget 2008: huge increase for Galileo, extra money for Kosovo and Palestine

The Budgets Committee of the European Parliament has completed its first-reading vote on the 2008 draft budget, October 2007. MEPs wish to reduce the amount allocated in the budget to the Common Foreign and Security Policy and to use the flexibility instrument to fund the EU's external policy. Funding for Galileo and the European Institute of Technology is sharply increased. If the plenary approves these proposals, some hard bargaining with the Council is in store.