The European Parliament voted (549 votes in favour, 1 against and 8 abstentions) under urgency procedure on Thursday 7 April for the CARE+ initiative, the second phase of aid to the European regions most affected by the wave of Ukrainian refugees based on the REACT-EU initiative.
“Faced with the emergency for Ukrainian refugees in Europe, the European Parliament is united. It has just adopted CARE + facility unanimously. I want to thank all my colleagues. This fund will provide immediate liquidity to frontline countries”, said Younous Omarjee (The Left, France), chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI), on his Twitter account. The Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, also welcomed the vote, noting the urgent need for cash for people and NGOs on the ground dealing with the influx of refugees.
At the end of March, the European Commission announced new measures enabling mobilisation of €3.4 billion by increasing the pre-financing of REACT-EU to 15% for all Member States and to 45% for the Member States most exposed to the refugee crisis (see EUROPE 12918/7).
The Member States concerned by the 45% pre-financing are those Member States which are in the frontline or which have recorded a number of arrivals of persons from Ukraine exceeding 1% of their national population between 24 February 2022 and 23 March 2022.
On Wednesday, the Committee of Permanent Representatives II (Coreper II) approved the European Commission’s proposal.
The first CARE initiative is on track for publication in the EU Official Journal. The EU Council adopted it on Monday 4 April, following the almost unanimous approval of the European Parliament at the end of March (see EUROPE 12918/15). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)