On Thursday 20 November, the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets and Committee on Budgetary Control approved (39 votes in favour, 11 against and no abstentions) the draft own-initiative report on the implementation of the rule of law cross-compliance regime (see EUROPE 13699/12).
MEPs are calling on the European Commission and the Council of the EU to strengthen the mechanism to ensure that violations of the rule of law do not put the EU budget at risk. To achieve this, they are calling for the mechanism to be activated more quickly and more simply, and for greater transparency and democratic control.
Complaints procedures need to be simpler, which the creation of a confidential portal for whistleblowers would facilitate, according to MEPs. In addition, the launch of an interactive public portal would enable citizens to follow each case “from its initial notification to the lifting of the measures”, explains the European Parliament.
In the draft own-initiative report, MEPs call for decisions to suspend European funds to be based on “clear, objective and transparent criteria, and not on negotiations”. Secondly, in their view, the frozen funds should only be released if the requested reforms have been “fully” implemented.
To ensure this, MEPs want Parliament to be consulted before any decision is taken to reallocate frozen funds to other programmes.
Another strand, which gave rise to dedicated discussions in 2025 (see EUROPE 13639/33), concerns the establishment of smart conditionality, which would not penalise citizens of EU Member States whose governments are targeted for breaches of the rule of law. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)