EU Budget 2018 commitments and 2019-2020 MFF ceilings by heading

Table 2 compares commitments in the adopted EU Budget for 2018 and the ceilings available for each heading in the remaining years of the current MFF. The figures in bold highlight the categories of spending for which the budgetary authority resorted to special instruments (the Flexibility Instrument and the global margin for commitments) when adopting the 2018 budget: subheading 1a ‘Competitiveness for growth and jobs’, subheading 1b ‘Economic, social and territorial cohesion’ and heading 3 ‘Security and citizenship’. Until 2020, pressure on the expenditure ceilings may be expected to recur for some of these categories, in particular ‘Security and citizenship’, which receives 24 % of its 2018 financing from special instruments (down from around 40 % in 2017).