MEPs welcomed the proposals of rapporteur Nicola Danti (S&D, Italy) on the regulation establishing a programme for the single market and competitiveness during a debate in the European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) on Monday 5 November in the early evening.
The rapporteur recalled his main proposals, in particular: to create a specific budget line for market surveillance and set a spending ceiling of 5% of the total budget for technical and administrative assistance, "in order to limit bureaucracy" (see EUROPE 12116). In addition, in connection with the Parliament's position adopted on the same day (see other news), the MEP explained that the budget dedicated to the programme would be €6 billion over the next budget cycle, compared to €4 billion in the European Commission's proposal (see EUROPE 12036).
The shadow rapporteur, Inese Vaidere (EPP, Latvia), welcomed the rapporteur's proposals, saying she was in favour of strengthening governance and considered the rapporteur's initiative to create a budget line for monitoring to be “commendable”, while questioning the parameters that had led to this line being set at precisely €396 million.
The MEP added that she wanted to strengthen the capacities and resources of supervisory authorities that would not have sufficient resources to carry out their activities, particularly in smaller or economically weaker Member States. She rejected the proposal made by the rapporteur in his 28th amendment, which adds a whole series of eligible actions to the programme, including coordination and cooperation between supervisory authorities.
Another shadow rapporteur, Jasenko Selimovic (ALDE, Sweden), also welcomed the European Commission's proposal, particularly for seeking to pool funds to rationalise resources, and the rapporteur's proposals. For him, it is absolutely necessary to enforce the rules, especially in the digital economy. Mr Selimovic said he supported Amendment No 28, even if he wanted to amend it at the margin.
Only the shadow rapporteur for the ECR, Richard Sulík (Slovak), was very critical of the Commission's own approach, regretting that the institution had converged 6 funds (see EUROPE 12036) without having carried out an individual evaluation of each of the funds beforehand.
No other shadow rapporteur took the floor.
In general, MEPs questioned the lack of coherence between the general objectives of the programme, listed between Article 3, and the budget lines in Article 4. The Commission explained that the general objectives were in all cases covered by the different budget lines provided for in Article 4. This approach was in line with the Commission's "general philosophy" for the next budget cycle: to make the use of resources more flexible.
The amendments were due by Tuesday 6 November at noon at the latest. The objective being to vote in committee on 13 December, the rapporteur said. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)