After a long day of negotiations on Thursday 30 March, the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council was unable to reach a provisional agreement with the European Parliament on the ‘Chips Act’. Negotiators came close to a conclusion during almost 9 hours of exchanges, but finally had to arrange a fourth interinstitutional negotiation meeting (‘trilogue’).
While progress was made on several issues in the regulation, the thorny issue of the budget for the ‘Chips for Europe’ initiative has not yet been resolved. Other parts of the text were also left open in the spirit of agreeing on a package of elements rather than closing off issues already.
The budget of €3.3 billion proposed by the Commission has been debated because of its origin. Where the Commission proposed to take them from the Horizon Europe and Digital Europe funds, the European Parliament called for new money (see EUROPE 13107/11), while Member States asked not to take so-called “decommitted” funds from the Horizon Europe programme. This leaves a €400 million hole in the budget and the EU Council does not want to go back on this decision, according to a preparatory note ahead of the trilogue, obtained by EUROPE.
The European Commission was therefore asked to propose alternative sources of funding for the missing €400 million. Which it had done, but so far without succeeding in convincing the co-legislators. In any case, they have indicated their wish to maintain the total budget of €3.3 billion, according to one source.
Technical discussions are to take place before a possible final trilogue.
See the document preparing the trilogue: https://aeur.eu/f/656 (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)