On Tuesday 15 November, Italy announced that, in principle, it was blocking the agreement at the Council of the EU on the mid-term revision of the multi-annual financial framework (MFF) of the EU for 2014-2020.
All of the other delegations agree with the compromise text of the Slovak Presidency of the Council on the revision of the MFF (see EUROPE 11667). However, the text must be approved unanimously. Sources indicate that the Italian reservation may be lifted on Wednesday 16 November, when the European Commission takes a position on Italy's draft budget for 2017 (see other article).
The Italian Secretary of State for European Affairs, Sandro Gozi, confirmed that Italy had merely entered a reservation and blocked the Council's approval of the agreement on the revision of the MFF. "It's not a formal vote, it's not a veto, it's a reservation", he said.
Italy feels that it does not have guarantees on the increase of the priority spending (immigration, security, fighting youth unemployment, Erasmus, framework programme Horizon 2020). Gozi said that he hoped Italy's position would allow Europe to be more consistent at the level of resources, putting money into the priorities it has set.
However, there is broad support for the following elements of the revision:
Extra amounts. €6.01 billion extra has been earmarked for the period 2017-2020 to support the priorities; €2.55 billion to meet the challenge of migration and to reinforce security and controls on the external borders; €2.08 billion for growth and jobs (€1.2 billion for the youth employment initiative, €300 million for the 'transport' plank of the Connecting Europe Facility, €200 million for Horizon 2020, €150 million for the European Fund for Strategic Investments, €100 million for the Erasmus programme, €100 million for the COSME programme and €25 million for WiFi4EU) and €1.39 billion to tackle the root causes of migration. €945 million (of the €6.01 billion) will be paid for through credit redeployments.
Increase in flexibility. The Council is planning to increase the ceilings of certain special instruments and to create the possibility to transfer unused amounts from one instrument to another. The emergency aid reserve will be increased from €280 million to a €300 million a year maximum and the flexibility instrument will rise from €471 million to €600 million (in 2011 prices). The amounts equivalent to the unused resources under the Globalisation Adjustment Fund and the EU Solidarity Fund will be transferred to the flexibility instrument.
Avoiding a payment default. The compromise features safeguards to avoid unpaid invoices piling up at the end of the MFF (particularly in the field of the cohesion policy). The Council undertakes to widen the scope of possibilities to recycle unused payments from one year to other years. The Council stresses that it is prepared to act to avoid any accumulation of unpaid invoices. The revised regulation on the MFF requires the agreement of the European Parliament before it may be adopted unanimously by the Council. In fact, the agreement on the MFF may be announced on Thursday 17 November, following the tough inter-institutional negotiations anticipated on the EU budget for next year. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur with Mathieu Bion)