At their plenary session on Thursday 18 December, MEPs adopted a resolution on the implementation of the Rule of law conditionality regime. The text, submitted by Jean-Marc Germain (S&D, French) and Monika Hohlmeier (EPP, German), was approved by 386 votes to 184 with 15 abstentions.
The day before the vote, the co-rapporteurs argued in the Chamber that the regime implemented five years ago was suffering from delays in its application. Jean-Marc Germain said that “the Commission has been too slow, too non-transparent and too timid in its action”. It had been necessary for European Parliament to refer the matter to the Court of Justice to push the Commission to initiate the procedure.
Monika Hohlmeier raised the issue of Parliament monitoring exchanges between the Commission and Member States and advocated for the traceability of procedures.
Jean-Marc Germain also drew attention to the regime’s activation for Hungary and the scale of the measures - €6.3 billion of cohesion funds were frozen in 2022 for 55% of the programmes concerned.
The French MEP advocated for the possibility of exceeding 50% in “systemic” cases and, if necessary, going up to 100%.
In addition, the resolution insists on the Rule of law “toolbox” being coherent at a time when discussions on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028-2034 have begun (see EUROPE 13775/3; EUROPE 13771/26).
MEPs are calling for coordination of the tools - conditionality, the Recovery and Resilience Facility, horizontal conditions - to avoid a situation where partial progress on one component releases funds even though serious Rule of law issues justifying sanctions may persist.
In addition, priority must be given to protecting the end beneficiaries. Students, researchers, local authorities, SMEs and civil society as a whole must not be penalised by the failings of central government.
The text also calls for the safeguards, including the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, to be consolidated and proposes a secure platform for Whistleblowers.
Finally, MEPs want to extend the scope for penalising Rule of law violations to a wider range of issues, including those related to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the proper functioning of the single market.
The report: https://aeur.eu/f/k2y (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)