Mr. Kyle O'Sullivan:

As the Deputy will note, under the original Commission proposal we were heading towards €70 billion and the most recent proposal from President Van Rompuy was €60.5 billion. It is one that has been subject to significant reduction in terms of the way the negotiations are going. That is as a result of pressure from the CAP and cohesion areas. The MFF discussion will only settle the overall figure for heading 4. It will not go into the details of the individual spending instruments but we have supported funding for initiatives on food security, sustainable agriculture, the environment and gender equality in particular. We have pressed that if there are further cuts or cuts to this heading that we would not support an across the board cut. The larger instruments include: the European neighbour instrument which provides funding for measures in eastern Europe and the southern Mediterranean; the pre-accession instrument which covers countries joining the EU; and development co-operation instrument which covers mostly development work in middle income countries. We have argued that the cuts should be applied to these instruments rather than to the smaller instruments covering humanitarian aid and other items, as we think they are less likely to impact on the poorest areas. We have a particularly policy line on this. We have been projecting that but it is clear that this area of the budget is being squeezed.