On Wednesday 20 September, members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets (BUDG) voted in favour (23 votes in favour, 3 against and 3 abstentions) of the draft report by Jan Olbrycht (EPP, Polish) and Margarida Marques (S&D, Portuguese) on the revision of the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) (see EUROPE 13236/2).
This draft report aims to add €10 billion to the €65.8 billion proposed by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13205/1) in order to strengthen policies such as migration, external challenges, the EU’s strategic autonomy and the EU’s crisis response capabilities.
“Our report does not deviate from the Commission’s proposal concerning the budget lines for which transfers are made, and it is reasonable. It was a very difficult exercise to convince everyone that an extra €10 billion was enough”, Ms Marques explained to a few journalists.
The European Parliament report increases the budget for external challenges and migration by €2 billion compared to the European Commission’s proposal.
While Parliament leaves the European Commission’s proposal for a €50 billion ‘Ukraine Facility’ untouched (see EUROPE 13205/1), a further €3 billion is earmarked for the new Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) (see EUROPE 13205/3) and €5 billion is earmarked to strengthen the EU’s capacity to respond to unforeseen crises (€3 billion for the flexibility instrument and €2 billion for the Solidarity and Emergency Aid Reserve).
Regarding the EURI budget line (debt payments resulting from the Recovery Plan), MEPs call for it to be placed above the EU budget ceilings, so as not to compromise citizens’ access to EU programmes, given the potential volatility of these costs due to rising interest rates.
The draft report will be put to a plenary vote at the first October session. The aim is for the revision to be adopted rapidly before the end of the year, once the Council of the EU has taken a decision itself.
To this end, Mr Olbrycht is calling on the Council of the EU to act quickly and “responsibly”.
“It is imperative that the revision comes into force before January 2024 in order to feed into next year’s annual budget. The MFF has obvious implications for the 2024 general budget”.
To see the draft report, go to https://aeur.eu/f/8o1 (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)