On Thursday, 14 January, Henna Virkkunen (EPP, Finland) told the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) that it is possible that the European Parliament and the Council of the EU will reach an agreement on the regulation establishing the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for 2021–2027 (see EUROPE 12622/10) on Friday, 22 January.
The other two rapporteurs responsible for this file, Dominique Riquet (Renew Europe, France) and Marian Marinescu (EPP, Romania), had been a little more reserved on Monday, 11 January, before the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport (TRAN).
“We will make a compromise proposal; the Council [of the EU] will have to adopt it, otherwise it will be difficult to move forward”, said Mr Marinescu. Lamenting the preceding German Presidency’s total lack of flexibility, Mr Riquet said that he hoped the forthcoming negotiations would take place in an “easier atmosphere”.
The main sticking points remain the allocation key for the cohesion envelope and earmarking part of the ‘Transport’ envelope for the Rail Baltica project (see EUROPE 12620/15 )—earmarking that was requested by the European Council.
On this point, Mr Marinescu specified, “We had an informal meeting with the Portuguese Deputy Permanent Representative, and we made it clear to him that if the Presidency stuck to the position adopted by the European Council, there would be no chance of an agreement”.
In addition, negotiators will have to examine issues concerning the start and end dates for the various funding streams as well as [the EU’s] climate commitments, which the European Parliament would like to see addressed in an article rather than in a recital.
Regarding the rule of law conditionality, Dominique Riquet assured that the deadlocks are expected to be resolved.
Finally, with regard to the digital aspect of the matter, Mrs Virkkunen indicated that the disagreements on the subject of security were only a question of formulation and that a solution was also in sight for the list of ‘5G corridors’ and cross-border backbone networks. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)