The EU Council and the Parliament have agreed on an EU budget for 2020, with a large portion of the total committed for addressing climate change.

The overall budget is set at €168.9 billion (£144bn) in commitments and €153.6 billion (£131bn) in payments.

Commitments are legal obligations to spend money that are signed in a given financial year. They can be contracts, grant agreement and decisions and the amounts are not necessarily paid out in the same year but may be spend over several financial years.

Payments cover expenditure due in the current year and comes from commitments form the same or earlier years.

Around 21% of the overall budget will be invested in tackling climate change, which has been achieved through increases for climate-related actions in several areas such as research and development, transport and energy infrastructure and the EU’s external action.

Kimmo Tiilikainen, State Secretary, Ministry of Finance of Finland and Chief Council negotiator for the 2020 EU budget said: “Next year’s budget strengthens support for the EU’s priority areas and best-performing programmes. It also ensures a realistic approach, taking into account the interests of taxpayers and the need to cater for new challenges that may arise in 2020.

“I would like to highlight in particular the move to further ‘green’ the EU budget and ensure that it works in support of the EU’s climate agenda.”