Juncker urges EU leaders to agree post-Brexit budget earlier

BRUSSELS, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday urged leaders of European Union member states to speed up their work on agreeing post-Brexit multiannual budget in order to avoid losses on money and jobs.

"Time is money. Delays in agreeing EU budget would cost 5000 research jobs for every single month that we do not agree and up to 600,000 Erasmus places in 2021 alone. And would jeopardise crucial infrastructure projects," Juncker told a press conference after a summit meeting of 27 EU leaders excluding Britain's prime minister.

European Council President Donald Tusk said at the same news conference that the EU leaders are unlikely to agree on a new multiannual budget this year. "We agreed that we should aim at speeding up the work, as compared with the previous negotiations. But finding an agreement in the European Council already this year seems really difficult," Tusk said.

It is estimated that Britain, as a net contributor to the EU budget, will after its exit leave a shortfall of more than 12 billion euros (14.7 billion U.S. dollars) per year in the budget.

With its current seven-year budget period ending in 2020, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, plans to present the blueprint of the next multi-year budget in May.

Juncker also called for increasing the size of the EU budget.

A fairly large number of countries said they were willing to pay more into the EU budget -- 14 or 15 countries, Juncker said.

"Those who want to restrict the EU budget to 1 percent of Gross National Income of the 27 countries instead of the current 1.13 percent should know that such a cut would mean cutting cohesion and agriculture funds by 15 percent or else to reduce other policies by 45 percent," he said. Enditem