In Strasbourg on Thursday 5 July, the European Parliament once again deplored the financing proposed by the Commission for the second tranche of the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRT) “and the subsequent agreement reached between member states in the Council on 29 June” (see EUROPE 12052).
In their adoption, by 399 votes to 146 and 88 abstentions, of the report by Daniele Viotti (S&D, Italy) on Parliament's mandate for the trialogue of 12 July on the 2019 budget, the MEPs state that they support the continuation of the FRT, but consider that the EU budget must contribute a maximum of €1 billion to its financing.
Parliament is calling for the member states to provide €2 billion (bilateral contributions) in order to keep sufficient margin in the framework of the special instruments of the MFF (multiannual financial framework) to deal with contingencies.
The FRT should be paid for out of fresh money, Parliament believes. In a press release, Viotti explains that the Council “wants to overturn the initial logic and limit its share to only €1 billion (…), passing the rest of the financial burden on the shoulders of the Communitarian budget”. In so doing, the rapporteur considers that the Council is “trying to steal crucial funds to hand them over to Ankara when they were supposed to be allocated to EU common policies. This is not acceptable”.
In general, Parliament welcomes the draft 2019 budget presented by the Commission (see EUROPE 12051). It welcomes the calls of the European Council of 28 June to reinforce Frontex by increasing the resources available to the agency and extending its mandate (however, it calls for clarifications on the staffing levels to be sent by member states and staff directly required by the agency).
In its adoption of an amendment tabled by the EPP group, Parliament welcomes the launch of DiscoverEU, which will allow 18-year-old Europeans the possibility of benefiting from one of 15,000 Interrail tickets in 2018. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)