The European Parliament rejected the agreement reached among member states on the EU budget for 2014-2020. In addition to sets out its stance on this topic for negotiating with the Council, MEPs want a political undertaking from the Council that all bills falling due in 2013 will be paid in 2013, so as to avoid "rolling over" a deficit into the new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).

MEPs adopted its mandate to negotiate the EU budget for 2014-2020 with the EU member states. In addition, they rejects the 8 February European Council conclusions on this topic in their current form. The resolution that includes the Parliament's mandate was agreed for the majority of political groups.

This resolution gives Parliament's negotiators a strong mandate to ensure that the MFF is flexible enough to allow available funds to be used optimally. Parliament also calls for a mid-term review of MFF spending, so as to give the newly-elected Parliament and Commission an opportunity to influence the budgets that they will inherit from today's legislators.

Moreover, the resolution highlights the growing problem of payment shortfalls, which prevent bills being paid and jeopardize EU programmes. Last year's shortfalls meant that several important EU programmes, such as Erasmus, the Research Framework Programme and the Social Fund ran out of funds early in the year.