The proposal to create an aid fund in support of the regions affected by Brexit, on which Marc Joulaud (EPP, France) is rapporteur, seems to be struggling due to the density of outstanding legislative work at the end of the legislative period.
The MEP had envisaged a resolution but, according to our information, the services of the committee on regional development (REGI) said that the MEPs were overwhelmed by the number of legislative acts to be dealt with before the end of the mandate. Indeed, the Commission has made a series of proposals for the forthcoming budgetary cycle in the field of the cohesion policy (see EUROPE 12029). The idea going down the "formal" path for this fund is therefore about to be dropped for this legislative period.
The European Commission, for its part, would appear not to have been bowled over by the proposal, as the terms for the divorce between the EU and the United Kingdom are still not clear, a source told us.
The proposal for this fund took root at the Committee of the Regions on the model of the 2001 proposal by Michel Barnier - currently the EU's negotiator on Brexit and then Commissioner for Regional Policy - aiming to support the cross-border regions of the future new member states (see EUROPE 12025). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)