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The 27 leaders meeting in Brussels reached an agreement on the EU budget that includes the recovery fund. This was announced by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, via Twitter, while European leaders are still meeting at the Brussels summit.
Treat the #MFF and recovery package #NGEU
Now we can start implementation and rebuild our economies.
Our historic recovery package will drive our green and digital transitions. #EUCO
– Charles Michel (@eucopresident) December 10, 2020
“We can now start implementing ‘the EU’s next generation plan’ and rebuild our economies,” Michel wrote on Twitter. “Our significant recovery package will drive our green and digital transitions,” he added. In the agreement that the leaders have just reached, there have been no changes with respect to the compromise proposal of the German presidency presented last night, as the AGI has learned from EU sources.
The agreement, promoted on the eve of the summit by Angela Merkel, who holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, would have convinced the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the polish Mateusz Morawiecki to withdraw his veto on the budget, effectively blocking the Recovery Fund. His opposition was linked to the new mechanism for the protection of the rule of law, which according to the compromise text would not have been canceled (as initially requested by Budapest and Warsaw), but postponed for two years. Long enough for Orban to be re-elected, some suspect.
The German proposal
The rule of law mechanism was created to block the arrival of EU funds to countries that do not respect the independence of the judiciary and other parameters of the legality of public spending, such as the fight against fraud and corruption. Smoke in the eyes for Warsaw and Budapest, already in the Commission’s sights for the violation of the European principles of division of powers and freedom of the media. For this reason the two countries banned especially the financial package of 1,800 million euros to request the elimination of the mechanism in dispute. Request returned to sender by the Brussels institutions, as the protection of the rule of law is the result of years of negotiations between the Commission, the Council of the EU and the European Parliament.
The exit was glimpsed yesterday with a document that, without changing a comma in the basic text, integrates the discipline with “an interpretation of the provisions,” diplomatic sources explain. Basically, if the mechanism is activated against a State, the latter can ask the Court of Justice of the EU to express its opinion on the legitimacy of the budget protection process that could lead to cuts in funds for countries that do not respect the principles of the EU. The term for a sentence varies from a year and a half to two years and, pending trial, the sanctions to the countries will be blocked.
The critics
“This is exactly the moment that Hungarian Prime Minister Orban needs to win the 2022 elections,” he said. Moritz korner, German MEP of the Renew Europe group, to the political newspaper. The same assessments are shared by exponents of the Greens and other European center-left formations, who in any case do not doubt that the commitment represents a step forward because it will allow us to start as soon as possible with the recovery plan for the EU economy.
The Italian government is satisfied
“A united Europe is stronger than vetoes and selfishness. The agreement reached in the European Council gives the green light to the multi-annual budget, the Recovery Fund and the rule of law regulation negotiated by the European Parliament. We are grateful to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, whose tenacity made it possible to achieve a historic result: with 209 billion, Italy is the first recipient of EU next generation funding. Now at work, citizens have high expectations about the National Recovery and Resilience Plan proposed by the government and we do not intend to disappoint them, ”said Tiziana Beghin, head of delegation of the 5 Star Movement to the European Parliament.
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