The EU Council of Ministers Monday adopted the regulation laying down the EU's seven-year budget known as the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2014-2020. This follows the European Parliament's consent of 19 November. Today's decision marks the end of two and a half years of negotiations and allows the new generation of EU spending programmes to be implemented as of 1 January 2014, noted an EU statement. The MFF regulation enables the European Union to spend up to EUR 959.99 billion in commitments and EUR 908.40 billion in payments over the next seven years. This is 3.5 percent and 3.7 percent respectively less than under the MFF 2007-13