Brussels, 21/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - The marathon negotiations scheduled for Tuesday 26 May between the representatives of the Council of the EU and of the European Parliament to create the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) are expected to be decisive.
“We are hoping for good results, but there are still many major obstacles to overcome”, Udo Bullmann (S&D, Germany), co-rapporteur on the draft regulation on the EFSI, told EUROPE on 21 May following a second night of inter-institutional negotiations, which took place in Strasbourg on the sidelines of the plenary session of the Parliament (see EUROPE 11318).
The Council and the EP have always expressed their intention of concluding a political agreement on the legislative proposal by the end of May, so that the EFSI, the financial arm of the Juncker plan designed to draw down more than €300 billion in additional investments within the EU over three years, can be up and running after the summer. However, the Parliament is not prepared to sacrifice the quality of the text on the altar of speed in order to seal a deal before the end of the Latvian Presidency of the Council in June.
“It's laborious. They are inching forwards, but they have the resources to reach an agreement”, a Parliamentary source told us. One of the subjects on which the two co-legislating institutions have made progress in recent days has to do with laying down eligibility criteria for the EFSI, which will provide a public guarantee for investment projects selected by the EIB. The negotiators have also made some progress on how to forward this guarantee to intermediaries, such as the national promotional banks, which will co-finance projects with an impact on the territory of the member states.
Trialogue negotiations, which will take place in Brussels for the whole of Tuesday, will discuss all of the outstanding issues. The European Commission will present the meeting with a new compromise text on the details for the composition of the guarantee from the EU budget (€16 billion) which will underpin the EFSI. On this controversial issue, the member states have not changed the Commission's proposal, which suggests taking significant amounts from the budgetary lines of the 'Horizon 2020' research programme and the Connecting Europe Facility, despite strong opposition from the stakeholders. At this stage, the Latvian Presidency's mandate provides no flexibility in this matter. Although it is not challenging the proposed level of the guarantee, the EP would rather make maximum use of the flexibility within the EU budget to constitute the guarantee, in exchange for a reduction of the amounts allocated to the multi-annual financial framework, before taking funds from programmes which already support investment.
The other outstanding subjects include the democratic control of the investment guidelines to be decided upon by the EFSI. The EP is calling for this control to be brought about through a delegated act, which gives it equal powers with the Council to accept or reject it. The two co-legislating institutions are still locking horns over the scoreboard to allow the EFSI to set sectorial priorities in selecting thematic projects, and over the procedure to appoint members of the board of directors of the EFSI, a point on which the EP fully intends to exercise democratic control. (Mathieu Bion)