The European Parliament and the Council, meeting within the Conciliation Committee, reached an agreement on the EU budget for 2012 on 18 November. The final adoption is expected to be taken before the end of the 2011 year.

The Council and the European Parliament, meeting within the Conciliation Committee, agreed to limit the total amount of payments for the 2012 EU budget to €129.088 billion. This corresponds to 0.98% of the EU's Gross National Income (GNI) and represents an increase of 1.86% compared to the EU budget 2011. The agreed payments increase remains below the latest Commission inflation forecast of 2% for the EU in 2012, meaning that in real terms the agreement is tantamount to a reduction of the EU budget.

Both institutions reached an agreement on the additional financial needs for 2011, as the Commission could not pay the bills any more in some policy area's. Apart from a reshuffle between budget lines as it was done on 8 November, an additional amount of €200 million will be added to the budget so that payments can transferred again for Social Fund projects and research. According to the Commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget, Janusz Lewandowski, this is clearly an austerity budget as most Member States are in the midst of a serious financial crisis. However the Commissioner regret that they did not take into account the fact that, as we are reaching the end of the current financial period, EU funded projects across Europe gather speed, and that therefore the European Commission has to pay higher amounts to beneficiaries than at the beginning of the financial period.

On the other hand, Parliament and Member States also agreed on the priorities for next year budget. The European Parliament had focused in its proposals on growth, innovation, employment, border control, migration management and support of democratic development in the Arab world and those priorities were all taken on board by the Member States.

In addition, MEPs and the Council agreed in an additional amount of €100 million for the financing of the nuclear fusion research programme, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER), in the south of France.