The recovery fund proposed by the Parliament in May has been well accepted by EU leaders who are calling it a “historic move for the EU”. However, MEPs have communicated their complaints concerning the massive cuts to the grant components and the future-oriented programmes, as their concern is that they will “undermine the foundations of a sustainable and resilient recovery”. MEPs are prepared to withhold their consent to the long-term budget unless the deal is improved.

Parliament’s priorities in view of an overall agreement, after the rule of law and own resources, should be the EU flagship programmes. The Parliament stresses that EU flagship programmes are now at risk of experiencing an immediate drop in funding from 2020 to 2021; furthermore, the EP points out that as of 2024, the EU budget as a whole will be below 2020 levels, jeopardising the EU’s commitments and priorities, notably the Green Deal and the Digital Agenda. In addition to that, EP insists that targeted increases on top of the figures proposed by the European Council must single out programmes relating to the climate protection, the digital transition, health, youth, research, border management and others (such as Horizon Europe, InvestEU, Erasmus+, the Just Transition Fund, Digital Europe, the Connecting Europe Facility, LIFE+, EU4health…).

Read the full article here and also take a look at all the Conclusions of the extraordinary European Council meeting of 17-21 July 2020.