Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper II) gave the green light on Monday 5 October to the negotiating mandates for React-EU, the Just Transition Fund, the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR), as well as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund (CF), the European Social Fund plus (ESF+) and Interreg, but left some articles in square brackets pending agreement.
All these mandates were the retranscription of the points negotiated during the extraordinary summit (see EUROPE 12532/2). These mandates are intended to finalise negotiations, some of which have been going on for more than a year and a half and which have made significant progress recently (90% of the CPR should now be stabilised), the idea being to enable the managing authorities to begin their work.
On React-EU, the ambassadors adopted a comprehensive mandate, including retroactive eligibility to 1 February 2020, the possibility of sealing commitments until 2023, and a two-week investment approval period. However, several Member States, including Italy, Malta and Romania, again expressed their disagreement with the 25% climate target, but agreed to the compromise proposed by Spain (see EUROPE 12571/7). In fact, according to them, React-EU is a conjunctural tool to respond to the consequences of the pandemic and requires the greatest possible flexibility.
Interinstitutional negotiations are due to resume on 14 October. The German EU Council Presidency is awaiting a final agreement, an ambition that some observers find optimistic.
As for the Just Transition Fund, the ambassadors adopted only a partial negotiating mandate, as there is still a point of contention on the article related to the conditioning of resources to the Member State’s commitment to climate neutrality by 2050. The German Presidency, in connection with the July agreement, suggests that 50% of a Member State’s allocations could be decommitted each year while the Member State (in this case Poland) has not formally committed itself to climate neutrality.
Here, several Member States, mainly net contributors (France, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg), criticised the wording of the article, which lacked clarity, and reportedly asked the German Presidency to come back with a new compromise.
The problem, one source tells us, is that European leaders have been unclear on how to disengage the money. Moreover, the disbursement rules are not the same between the multiannual financial framework (until 2029) and Next Generation EU (until 2026).
The German Presidency is said to have remained silent on this point or “confused” as to the next steps, we are told. It could have settled this point in the interinstitutional negotiations with the European Parliament or said that the matter would be discussed again in a working group, as one source analyses.
On the Common Provisions Regulation between the Structural and Investment Funds, the partial mandate was adopted without any problems. Only Italy is said to have underlined its disagreement with the article dedicated to macroeconomic conditions: the article is “obsolete”, according to Italy, on the grounds that its wording dates from before the coronavirus crisis and no longer corresponds to the economic reality of the Member States and national debts and deficits. This point was also raised by several delegations at the working group.
No remarks were made about the ERDF and CF and the ESF+. As regards Interreg, only Romania highlighted the issue of pre-financing in connection with the annual closure of accounts (before, pre-financing could accumulate from year to year). This point was raised in a working group, notably by the Baltic countries.
The trilogues should resume on the other funds as early as next week. No date has been communicated to us at this time.
To consult the texts: https://bit.ly/3jzrY3k (React-EU); https://bit.ly/30BLRiK (JTF) https://bit.ly/2GE9e48 (CPR); https://bit.ly/3lgPIK0 (ERDF and CF); https://bit.ly/3ldAsxp (ESF+); https://bit.ly/2SqomVr (Interreg) (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)