Negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU on extending the duration and firepower of the 'Juncker' investment plan will resume in Brussels on Thursday 7 September (see EUROPE 11829).
The two main obstacles to an agreement continue to be the details for financing the extension of the public guarantee granted by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) to projects selected by the EIB and the governance of the EFSI steering committee.
In July, the European Commission presented proposed compromises on both matters, which the Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU will put to the test at the competent working group of the Council on Monday 4 September.
On the governance plank, the Commission is reported to have suggested authorising the European Parliament to appoint an independent expert (who will not be an MEP) to the EFSI steering committee, but this expert will not have voting rights.
On financing, the proposed compromise is somewhere in the middle, according to a source close to the dossier. The Council wants to make €650 million available from the budgetary lines of the Horizon 2020 programme and the Connecting Europe Facility. This is a line in the sand for the Parliament, which would prefer instead to take the unused budgetary margins under the ceiling of one or more headings of the multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020.
A second session of inter-institutional negotiations has already been set for Tuesday 12 September in Strasbourg, on the day before the State of the Union speech to be given by the president of the European Commission. In 2016, this speech gave Juncker a platform to announce the proposal to extend the investment plan named after him (see EUROPE 11624). According to one negotiator, however, this year is a coincidence rather than any pressure to conclude the dossier quickly. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)