In a plenary debate in Brussels on Monday 5 October, MEPs confirmed their opposition to the proposal submitted by the German Presidency of the Council of the EU regarding a mechanism to protect the EU budget against failures in the Rule of law.
This matter is part of the package involving the EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027 and the EU’s post-pandemic Economic Recovery Plan that still needs to be finalised.
Negotiations on these issues between EU institutions will resume on Thursday 8 October (see EUROPE 12574/3).
Referring to the proposal tabled by the German Presidency of the Council of the EU, Petri Sarvamaa (EPP, Finland), concluded that a mechanism “that can never be triggered in practice because it has back doors only serves the interests of those who do not want action to be taken”.
Iratxe García Pérez (S&D, Spain) pointed out that the proposal “is still unsatisfactory”, as the fight against corruption is not the only issue at stake. “The Rule of law goes much further: it is a common constitutional inheritance”. She also felt that the Commission “cannot be sidelined by deadlocks in the Council of the EU”. Hence the need to use reverse qualified majority voting instead of qualified majority voting, she argued.
Renew Europe felt the same. What the German Presidency of the Council of the EU is proposing “is not really a Rule of law mechanism any more”, said Moritz Körner. He believes the mechanism “may never be triggered because reverse qualified majority voting has been dropped”.
According to Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, Belgium), the logic of this proposal would unfortunately be as follows: breaches of the Rule of law are only of concern if they have an impact on the Union's finances. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur, with Agathe Cherki)