At the plenary session to be held in Strasbourg from 3 to 6 April, the European Parliament is expected to approve the agreement on the mid-term revision of the multi-annual financial framework (MFF).
Time is looking too tight to allow Parliament to give its consent at next week's plenary session, one source told us. Parliament can either accept or reject the agreement revising the MFF; it may not amend it. Theoretically, it could still secure a declaration on a given theme from the other institutions.
On Tuesday 7 March, Italy announced that it was lifting its reservation on the text, thanks to a declaration of the European Commission paving the way for extra money to fight youth unemployment and tackle the migration crisis (see EUROPE 1740).
Extra money. This stands at €6.01 billion in total between 2017 and 2020; €2.55 billion to meet the challenge of migration and reinforce security and controls on the external borders; €2.08 billion for growth and employment (€1.8 billion for the youth employment initiative, €300 million for the 'transport' section 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 COSME and €25 million for Wifi4EU); €1.39 billion to tackle the root causes of migration.
€945 million (of the €6.01 billion) will be financed by redeploying credits.
The declaration that persuaded Italy to lift its reservation. The Commission's declaration, dated 6 March, concerns reinforcing the youth employment initiative and additional measures to help resolve the migration process and security issues. “Should the downwards trend in youth unemployment observed since 2013 reverse again, consideration should be given to increase the funding for the youth employment initiative beyond the amount of €1.2 billion agreed”, by using the available margin under the Global Margin for Commitments. To this end, the Commission will present a draft amending budget if required. The declaration states that additional margins available should be considered, as a matter of priority, for investing in young people across Europe and to adopt measures to help tackle the internal and external dimensions of the migration crisis and security issues, should new requirements not covered by the existing or agreed funding emerge. “The Commission will make proposals to that end if appropriate while keeping in mind the need to maintain sufficient margins for unexpected events and the smooth implementation of already agreed programmes”, the declaration states.
Payments ceilings. In order to increase flexibility and allow the EU to meet its obligations, there are provisions aiming to increase the maximum amounts laid down to adjust the payments ceilings for the years 2019 and 2020 under the Global Margin for Payments. For the years 2018 to 2020, the annual adjustments will not exceed the maximum amounts in relation to the initial ceiling of the payments for the financial years in question: 2018 (€7 billion), 2019 (11 billion) and 2020 (€13 billion).
Special instruments. The agreement increases the reserve for emergency aid (to €300 million a year, compared to €280 million at the moment) and the flexibility instrument (to €600 million a year, from €471 million at the moment), gets rid of the time restrictions related to the constitution of the Global Margin for Commitments and extends the scope of this margin.
The new regulation provides for the unused amounts from the Solidarity Fund of the European Union and the European Globalisation Adjustment fund to be made available to the flexibility instrument.
The agreement provides for a declaration of the European Parliament and of the Council in order “to counter the risk of an excessive backlog of unpaid bills”, and a further declaration on an independent assessment on the results obtained with regard to the target of progressively reducing the staff of the EU institutions by 5% between 2013 and 2017.
Lastly, in a declaration, the Council proposes maintaining the status quo and not at this stage defining a rule on the treatment of payments relating to certain special instruments. In its opinion, the legal service of the Council states that it is the responsibility of the budgetary authority to decide on a case-by-case basis, whenever a special instrument is mobilised, whether some or all of the corresponding payments should be calculated above the upper limits of the MFF. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)