On Tuesday 13 October, the EU Affairs Ministers will discuss a number of important issues ahead of the EU Summit on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October.
They will be particularly expected to discuss the coordination of national measures against Covid-19 and are expected to adopt the compromise reached by the Member States' Ambassadors to the EU on Friday 9 October (see EUROPE 12578/1).
The draft recommendation aims to co-ordinate travel restrictions in the EU and to identify common criteria and a common colour code for this purpose. It also calls on Member States to put in place similar measures such as quarantine or testing on return from particular sub-state regions.
The European Commission said it was satisfied with the draft text, which slightly modifies the version it had presented to the EU27 in early September, a source said on Monday, 12 October (see EUROPE 12553/1).
On Monday, the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, herself called on the European Affairs Ministers to adopt this text.
“It's hard to know where you can travel, what rules to follow when you travel and what rules apply when you return home. We must coordinate these measures in order to make life easier for Europeans. The clearer the rules, the better the citizens will be able to apply them”, she commented.
United Kingdom. On future relations with the United Kingdom, the ministers will hear from the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who was in London last week for informal talks and is continuing these exchanges this week in Brussels.
The ministers are expected to essentially just signal their support for the negotiator and “I don't expect much more”, a diplomatic source said on Friday, 9 October.
They will be able to say whether progress has been made in the negotiations only before the EU Summit, which is partly devoted to post-Brexit bilateral relations. These relations are still stalled over the establishment of a level playing field, governance and fisheries.
On Tuesday, the ministers could also reiterate the need to be prepared for all hypotheses, including that of a no-deal.
Rule of law. Two weeks after the presentation by the Commission of its first annual report on respect for the Rule of law in the Member States (see EUROPE 12571/5), the ministers will have a general debate on the aspects covered by the report: the independence of judicial systems, media pluralism, the fight against corruption and the balance of powers in a democracy.
This dialogue will be part of the annual dialogues that the Council of the EU has been holding since 2014 and which each year respond to a specific theme. A more specific debate will take place in November on the situation in five countries: Belgium, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Denmark.
The purpose of these exercises is to rebuild trust between Member States. For example, the courts in the Netherlands recently refused to execute European arrest warrants that involved handing certain people over to the Polish justice system.
MFF 2021-2027 and European Recovery Plan. The German EU Council Presidency will present to the EU ministers a progress report on the interinstitutional negotiations (Parliament, EU Council and Commission) to finalise the details of the EU's Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2021-2027 and the Recovery Plan to counter the effects of Covid-19.
Seven meetings at political level have taken place so far, focusing on new Own Resources, the governance of the Recovery Plan or the envelopes of the EU flagship programmes. On Monday 12 October, a first trilogue took place in the evening on the text providing for a cross-compliance regime linked to the EU budget (ordinary legislative procedure).
“We will continue negotiations on Wednesday [14 October]. I think we are quite close to a compromise on the envelopes for the programmes” for which the European Parliament wants an increase in funding, an EU diplomatic source said (see EUROPE 12578/2).
The German Presidency's compromise envisages an increase of between €5 and €9 billion for these programmes, and this offer still stands.
On Own Resources, the EU Council accepts the addition, in the current Interinstitutional Agreement on budgetary matters, of a timetable for the introduction of new Own Resources over the period 2021-2027. These would be used to repay the stimulus package credits.
The EU Council also states that it has taken into account the European Parliament’s requests on the governance of the Recovery Plan, notably regarding the external assigned revenues. The aim is to allow annual democratic control of this revenue by the budgetary authority (European Parliament and EU Council).
“The most difficult subject is the mechanism of conditionality with Rule of law elements”, the source said.
The EU Council also insists on the urgency of rapidly reaching a compromise with the European Parliament by mid-October in order to launch and complete, by the end of 2020, the procedures for ratification by national parliaments of the Own Resources decision (which will authorise the Commission to borrow on behalf of the EU27 to finance the European Recovery Plan).
Conference on the Future of Europe. The German Presidency will take stock of the inter-institutional discussions on the future joint declaration setting out the objectives and modalities of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
“Basically, everything is on track. The rest can be done in 30 minutes. The real problem is the presidency”, a European source said on Friday 9 October.
Member States would like to decide by consensus who will preside over the day-to-day work of the Conference. They reject the Parliament's choice of Guy Verhofstadt (Renew Europe, Belgium), a personality too federalist for the taste of some countries. However, the Parliament will refuse to allow the EU Council alone to determine the presidency of the conference, warned Pascal Durand (see EUROPE 12576/27). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic, Lionel Changeur and Mathieu Bion)