Brussels, 17/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 15 June, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) stressed the need for a full mid-term review of the multi-annual financial framework (MFF) 2014-2020.
In its adoption of the opinion by Luc Van den Brande (EPP, Belgium) on the mid-term review of the MFF 2014-2020, the CoR takes the view that the resources currently available under the MFF are insufficient to tackle the issue of the migrant and refugee crisis over the coming years. The corresponding ceiling of the MFF must be increased in order to be able to receive and integrate the migrants, costs mainly covered by the local and regional authorities, the Committee of the Regions argues.
Juncker Fund. The Committee of the Regions is of the opinion that a review of the MFF should at the very least compensate for the cuts made to two programmes in relation to the European fund for strategic investments (EFSI). In order to finance part of the “Juncker” fund, a decision was made to redirect funds from existing programmes (€2.2 billion reduction for the programme Horizon 2020 and €2.8 billion for the Connecting Europe Facility).
Additionally, the regional representatives are calling for an abolition of the practice of refunding the budgetary surplus to the national budgets of the member states and deducting it from their contribution to the EU budget for the following year. This money should, they argue, remain in the budget of the EU.
MFF post-2020. The CoR reiterates its preference for a long budgetary period of 10 years, with a substantial and obligatory mid-term review after the first five years. It draws attention to the fact that the preferred formula of an MFF term of 5+5 years dovetails perfectly with the terms of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Committee of the Regions, which would help to “strengthen the democratic legitimacy and control of the forthcoming MFF”.
Own resources. The CoR calls for the creation of new own resources within the next MFF, which would make the member states' contributions to the EU budget based on GNI (gross national income) largely redundant.
The CoR points out that regional policy, which has an envelope of more than €350 billion up to 2020, aims to support long-term investments. The local and regional representatives feel that this money cannot and should not be used to react to unforeseen crises.
In a press release, Van den Brande said: “more flexibility is needed, but it is not a solution to insufficient resources. We must avoid a new payment backlog and abolish returns of unspent funds to the member states”.
“Without an adequate increase in payment appropriations, a new payment backlog risks to seriously hinder the implementation of EU policies on the ground”, the rapporteur also warned. (Original in French by Lionel Changeur)