The Renew Europe group in the European Parliament presented again on Wednesday 15 July, ahead of the European Summit on 17 and 18 July, its plan for “smart conditionality” with regard to European funds and respect for the Rule of law (see EUROPE 12523/7).
In a press conference moderated by Sandro Gozi (Italy) and Katalin Cseh (Hungary), the group reiterated its wish that conditionality should not penalise the citizens of the countries targeted by a suspension nor the municipalities, Budapest being, for example, led by the opposition to Fidesz. Under this system, funds could be managed directly or indirectly by the Commission, which would pay them to the beneficiaries without going through the country’s authorities.
This would be done either directly, from the Commission and its Representations in each Member State, or indirectly, through “a politically independent organisation capable of doing so and located in the Member State in question”. The Commission could also entrust the implementation of projects to organisations such as the European Investment Bank.
“We don’t want to penalise citizens twice”, said the Italian, as they are already being penalised by their governments for violating the principles of the Rule of law.
The two elected representatives believe that conditionality would, in any case, be likely to change many things in the EU and would finally put “fundamental values at the heart of the European budget”.
The EU27 will discuss it starting 17 July. At this stage, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, maintained the principle of conditionality for the budget and the recovery funds, but did not retain the Commission’s idea of preventing suspension by a reverse qualified majority.
The so-called ‘frugal’ countries are pushing for strong conditionality on the Rule of law, but Prime Minister Mark Rutte told the Dutch Parliament earlier this week that reverse qualified majority voting is no longer on the table.
Link to Renew Europe’s ‘smart conditionality’: https://bit.ly/3fwDWsr (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)