In a vote by Parliament’s budgets committee, a draft resolution on the EU's budget for 2017 was approved by 29 votes to seven, with one abstention.
The additional funding supported by the committee amounts to €1.24bn above the draft budget proposed by member states.
This includes €1.5bn MEPs have added in “commitment appropriations” for the so-called Youth Employment Initiative.
The committee on Wednesday also decided to reinstate in full the original budgets of the Connecting Europe Facility, which funds infrastructure projects, and the Horizon 2020 programme, which backs research projects. Both programmes had faced cuts.
Budgets committee members also expressed “strong support” for the agricultural sector in the EU and increased its "appropriations" by €600m above the draft budget to tackle the effects of the dairy sector crisis and the Russian embargo on the milk sector.
MEPs additionally said that funding for the EU refugee deal with Turkey and other “ad-hoc funds or instruments” should "not come at the expense" of the EU’s existing external action, including its development policy.
The committee “strongly questioned” whether the funds for projects in third countries are sufficient, especially in view of the current refugee and migration crisis.
Parliament as a whole will vote on 26 October on a proposed budget amounting to €161.8bn in commitments, €4.13bn more than the original proposal.
The plenary vote will kick off three weeks of “conciliation” talks with the Council, with the aim of reaching a deal between the two institutions in time for next year's budget to be voted by Parliament and signed off in December.
Speaking after the vote, rapporteur Jens Geier said, “Europe should be big on big issues. Consequently we have reinforced the budget lines to support jobs and growth and reversed the cuts made by the member states, who acted against their own priorities.”