On Thursday 30 January, the members of the European Parliament’s Committees on Budget and Foreign Affairs approved the new ‘Reform and Growth Facility for Moldova’ (74 votes in favour, 21 against and one abstention) and the mandate for interinstitutional negotiations (69 votes in favour, 21 against and 3 abstentions).
Contrary to the Commission’s initial proposal of 10 October (see EUROPE 13501/17) and the position of the Council of the EU adopted on 17 December (see EUROPE 13547/27), MEPs are proposing a higher rate of pre-financing. In their view, Moldova should have access to 20% of the total funding in the form of pre-financing, compared with the 7% initially proposed (see EUROPE 13542/16).
MEPs also want to increase the proportion of non-repayable grants from 16% to 23.5%, which would provide Moldova with €420 million in direct financial aid. This adjustment is made possible by the reallocation of the €135 million needed to provision loans to the NDICI-Global Europe ‘cushion for emerging challenges and priorities’, according to Parliament.
The negotiating mandate will be announced at the opening of the next plenary session on Monday 10 February, and if there is no request for a vote by Tuesday 11, the President of Parliament will declare on Wednesday 12 that the interinstitutional negotiations can begin without a plenary vote. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)