In his speech at the opening of the European Council on Thursday 1 October, the President of the European Parliament David Sassoli was keen to maintain pressure on Member States to agree to improve the arrangements concerning the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021–2027 and the post-Covid-19 Recovery Plan for the economy (see EUROPE 12571/4).
The topics of the MFF and the Recovery Plan are not officially on the agenda of this European Council (see other news), following an agreement reached on 21 July at the end of lengthy negotiations. However, the difficulties in concluding the negotiations between the EU Council and the European Parliament in time, are a cause for concern at the highest level.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We will discuss the state of play of the discussions over the MFF and the Recovery Plan with the President of the European Parliament”.
“I want to make this perfectly clear, because some signals are totally unacceptable: the European Parliament is not standing in the way of anything”, said the European Parliament President.
The EU Council is criticising the European Parliament for dragging its heels over talks to reach an agreement. Mr Sassoli believes that the delays are due to “the lack of counter-proposals received from the EU Council”. He wants to believe that it is still possible to quickly reach a political agreement, provided the will is there.
The EU Council does not accept the European Parliament's demands for increased funding for certain EU flagship programmes and they remain divided over the sensitive issue of the link between the disbursement of budgetary funds and respect for the Rule of law.
The text being tabled by the German Presidency contains a qualified majority of Member states in the EU Council, but has been criticised by those who still find issues with it.
“I am sure that an agreement will be reached”, said French President Emmanuel Macron at the end of the meeting, quoting Merkel as saying that the German proposal on the table “can be improved”. He stressed that the issue of the rule of law is “more existential“strong” than just conditionality on the European Recovery Plan.
Upon arriving at the European Council, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that he wanted there to be a “strong” link between the Rule of law and Recovery Plan payments. “The Hungarians and Poles want to dilute the mechanism, while the Germans are trying to find a compromise. We remain to be fully convinced by the current text submitted by the Germans”, said the Prime Minister. He is hopeful that the European Parliament will be able to negotiate a more ambitious text.
Agreements outside of the MFF? Before going to the EU summit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that if the debate on linking the Rule of law to the EU budget “delays the creation of the emergency fund to battle Coronavirus, then it would be possible to conclude bilateral agreements outside of the MFF”, by which he meant agreements on an intergovernmental basis.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron, argued that “work must continue with the European Parliament over these issues, but I think that nothing should be allowed to hold this Recovery Plan to hostage, and in particular not the desire to block or force a passage over a particular topic”.
The chair of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, Dacian Cioloș, is of the opinion that the proposal put forward by the German presidency of the EU Council concerning the Rule of law mechanism is insufficient. “We need a really strong mechanism. Under the EU Council's proposal, the scope is greatly reduced and there should be a procedure with a reverse qualified majority since the European Commission must play a strong role within this process”, he said.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said: “The EU must do its job” and approve both the MFF and the Recovery Plan.
Following the agreement of the European Parliament and the EU Council on the MFF and the Economic Recovery Plan, the decision regarding own resources, which gives substance to the €750 billion Recovery Plan, must be ratified by all national parliaments. This will take time since the Recovery Plan is scheduled to take effect on January 1 2021. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)