In Brussels on Tuesday, 17 December, with the support of several other fisheries ministers, the Czech Minister of Fisheries called for budgetary flexibility in the current (2014-2020) European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) Regulation.
At the Fisheries Council, the Bulgarian, Estonian, Latvian, Hungarian and Romanian delegations supported the call from the Czech minister. The Czech minister stated that the allocations determined by the Commission (in accordance with priorities) are not assessed in accordance with States’ budgets. The risk is that countries may lose EMFF funds because of the strict rules.
The ministers believe that the current legislation does not provide the necessary flexibility for allocating funds. In a note, the countries explained that “we would like to call upon the European Commission to consider an appropriate amendment of current legislation as soon as possible in order to allow allocation flexibility between Union Priorities under the EMFF”.
Italy supported the need for flexibility in the allocation of funds, as did Slovenia, Hungary and Portugal, the latter highlighting the risks of losing EMFF credits.
France also supported more flexibility to ensure full use of the EMFF. Spain also requested the flexibility to “exceed certain thresholds”, depending on priorities.
Sweden, on the other hand, has been critical of greater flexibility in this area. The Danish fisheries minister also said that financial allocations must be respected.
Fisheries Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius reminded ministers that the Commission's initial proposal did not include any limits on reallocation of funds between priorities, but that the co-legislators decided otherwise. “There must be no reallocation of funds at the expense of compliance with data collection, monitoring and implementation requirements”, said the Commissioner. But he promised that, if a Member State fulfils these requirements, “it will not be penalised if uptake is at a low level”. Sinkevičius finished by saying that, in any event, the Commission does not want to present a proposal in the way the ministers have requested, as it would take too long for the text to be adopted through the codecision process.
The note written by the countries on the subject of the EMFF can be found via this link: http://bit.ly/2PvknGl (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)