Negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of the EU are progressing very slowly on the proposal for a Regulation establishing the single financial instrument for Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation (NDICI) in the future EU budgetary framework 2021-2027 (see EUROPE 12345/15). And there is little to expect from the second “trilogue”, scheduled for 20 February, the same day that an extraordinary European Council will be held in Brussels on this future Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
All the political issues are to be settled and refer, for the most part, to the negotiations on the MFF, both in terms of the architecture of the instrument - in particular the integration of the European Development Fund (EDF) and the Neighbourhood Instrument - and the amounts which are part of the overall negotiation.
“We are still at the beginning with Parliament”, a diplomatic source said on Wednesday 12 February.
“At the technical level, we discussed general arrangements, programming, rapid response action. Politically, we haven't achieved anything. It is unacceptable that some of the founding Member States are among the stingiest”, Charles Goerens (Renew Europe, Luxembourg), one of the co-rapporteurs on this dossier, told EUROPE on the day that Parliament called for an ambitious compromise on the MFF (see EUROPE 12424/2).
As for the integration of the EDF, for him it seems to be obvious. “We're teaching the rest of the world about democratic principles. These lie in the separation of powers and the budgetary prerogatives of Parliament”, he said. That the exercise of these prerogatives is not yet guaranteed seems “anachronistic” to him.
The thorniest political issues in the negotiations are: - integration of the EDF into the budget, a long-standing demand by Parliament to increase its prerogatives; - new governance: the Commission should remain the executive power for NDICI funds and humanitarian aid, but, in the event that the EDF is integrated into the budget, Parliament would like to have a say in the programming of the funds, which is why it is calling for delegated acts in order to be on an equal footing with the EU Council as co-legislator; - whether or not to make migration an element of conditionality. The vast majority of Parliament is against it, but in the EU Council, countries such as Hungary and Poland are very much in favour of it; - the need to agree on the choice of financial institution, EIB or EBRD.
In order to facilitate the negotiations, conducted at technical level - i.e. between the EU Council and Parliament represented by experts - the members of the Foreign Affairs and Development Committees, without the rapporteurs, review the text according to about ten ‘clusters’, i.e. grouping the articles of the Regulation by theme, such as general objectives or governance. On 20 February, negotiators will focus on the annexes to the draft regulation. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)