Members of the European Parliament’s Budgets (BUDG) and Economic Affairs (ECON) committees clearly adopted (73 votes in favour, 11 against and 15 abstentions), on Monday 9 November, the report by Siegfried Mureşan (EPP, Romania), Eider Gardiazabal (S&D, Spain) and Dragoș Pîslaru (Renew Europe, Romania) on the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the instrument at the heart of the EU's post-Covid-19 recovery Plan.
This result was expected, as the major political groups in the European Parliament had concluded compromise amendments. These amendments, previously detailed in our articles (see EUROPE 12596/3), have thus all been approved.
While MEPs preferred not to change the Facility's budgetary envelope (€672.5 billion, of which €312.5 billion in grants and €360 billion in loans) or its distribution among Member States (see EUROPE 12562/12) so as not to complicate future inter-institutional discussions, they did make certain changes to the Facility's procedural rules.
Rule of law
In particular, MEPs call for the instrument to be accessible only to Member States that are committed to respecting the rule of law and the fundamental values of the Union.
They also propose that, in the event of a widespread failure to respect the rule of law in a Member State which undermines the principles of sound financial management or the protection of the EU’s financial interests, the Commission should be empowered to suspend payments under the Facility to that country.
Climate
On the use of the funds, MEPs call for at least 40% of national recovery plan allocations to be dedicated to climate and biodiversity policies, compared to 37% according to the Member States’ position, and at least 20% to finance expenditure for the digital transition.
They also want the Facility to support only those projects that comply with the ‘do no significant harm’ principle. According to the definition adopted by MEPs, this principle will thus have to be linked to the EU taxonomy to ensure that the Facility cannot support economic activities that significantly undermine an environmental objective.
Much to the chagrin of environmental NGOs, MEPs rejected the Environment Committee's (ENVI) proposal, recently backed by 116 MEPs (see EUROPE 12597/5), to exclude fossil fuel-related investments from national plans for recovery and resilience.
“MEPs have blown their chance to secure a green recovery that rules out fossil fuels”, lamented Greenpeace member Silvia Pastorelli.
Finally, MEPs demand that the Commission present a six-monthly report to the co-legislators (and not an annual one, as originally planned) containing detailed information on the implementation of the objectives and milestones set out in the national plans and the amounts paid to each EU country.
No plenary vote
At the same time, MEPs also adopted a mandate to start inter-institutional negotiations (‘trilogues’), thus skipping the usual vote in Parliament’s plenary session.
According to our information, this mandate will be announced on Wednesday 11 November, at the beginning of the plenary, with a view to starting the trilogues as early as next week. If a political group requests reconfirmation of the mandate, it will be put to the vote on Friday. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)