On Wednesday 19 December, within the framework of the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States (Coreper), Member States adopted a partial agreement on the Rules of Procedure setting out common provisions, which introduces many flexibilities.
It took the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union no less than 24 technical meetings and a Competitiveness Council (see EUROPE 12150, 12149) to reach a partial agreement. The agreement covers two blocks (there are eight in all), in particular Bloc 1 related to “programming and strategic planning” and Bloc 5 on "management and control”.
According to a preliminary analysis, the Member States seem to have agreed on a simplification – in places drastic – of the Rules of Procedure. Thus, in Article 4 on policy objectives, national delegations deleted the reference to "integrated urban, rural and coastal development" and “support for local initiatives”, replacing it with support for “all types of territories", which is much more vague in nature.
In Article 6, dedicated to partnerships and multi-level governance, delegations endorsed the maintenance of the current code of conduct (delegated regulation 240/2014), where a new, more ambitious and binding code of conduct had instead been expected.
As regards the obligation to conclude a partnership agreement (which lays down strategic guidelines for the programming of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Cohesion Fund (CF), the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and the European Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), delegations introduced derogations.
These derogations were of two kinds: - when the amount of ERDF, CF and ESF+ resources for a Member State is lower than €2.5 billion; - when a Member State submits no more than three programmes for investment for jobs and growth.
One point of interest is that national delegations deleted the Commission's proposal to link the partnership agreement with the annual reform programme.
Delegations also made amendments to Article 19 on the possibility of amending programmes. Here, Member States have increased the European Commission's proposals allowing a Member State during the programme period to transfer an amount of up to 8% (compared to 5% in the Commission's proposal) of the initial allocation on one priority and no more than 4% of the programme budget to another priority “in the same fund in the same programme".
Interestingly, again, Member States have added the possibility of transferring up to 10% of the initial allocation related to a priority under the EMFF. Similarly, they provide for a transfer of up to 15% for the Asylum and Migration Fund, the Internal Security Fund and the Border Management and Visa Instrument.
This is the first analysis. EUROPE will return to the agreement in more depth at the beginning of January.
It should be noted that no agreement could be reached on Bloc 2 ‘enabling conditions’ and the ‘performance framework’. On the latter point, national delegations should be close to an agreement, which is due to take place under the next Romanian Presidency of the Council, which will take up the reins in January. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)