Brussels, 14/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 14 November, the European Parliament's budgets committee approved by 28 votes to 5 the draft regulation on the EU's multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2014-2020, despite uncertainty about who will chair the upcoming high-level expert group on the EU's own resources and how the group will operate.
The real problem with the high-level expert group is that there is not yet any agreement on who is to chair it. Jan Mulder (ALDE, tNetherlands), Ivailo Kalfin (S&D, Bulgaria) and Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France) said that, at the Conference of Presidents of the EP's political groups on Thursday morning, it was decided to put the MFF for 2014-2020 on the agenda for next week's plenary. The three MEPs say that the EP should, however, only vote if there are sufficient guarantees about the creation of the high-level group on own resources. François Alfonsi (Greens/EFA, France) called in vain for the budgets committee to postpone its vote on the MFF.
The chair of the EP's budgets committee, Alain Lamassoure, said that it would never be possible to finalise the group's working methods, how it will interact with the EU institutional and the timeline until the name of the person who will chair the group is known. He pointed out that the chair would need to be a very high-ranking individual, like a former head of state. Alain Lamassoure said that, when issuing its final vote on the MFF, the EP would need to be given the assurance it requires.
Lamassoure says the EP has received a progress report from Coreper on the high-ranking group on own resources, which was not fully satisfactory, but the Conference of Presidents would be deciding on that. He said the EP has to retain the option of not holding the final vote next week and he himself would be briefing the president of the EP after the Conference of Presidents' meeting, but the vote now needed to take place at the budgets committee. (LC/transl.fl)