Debate: Multiannual financial framework for the years  to  - Establishing the Ukraine Facility - Establishing the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform
Date: TUESDAY, 27 FEBRUARY 2024
Speaker: Johannes Hahn
Language: EN

Since the Commission proposed a revision eight months ago, we have been working closely together on this review, which allows us to amend the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), strengthening our Union by strengthening key policies. I would like to thank you, Members of the European Parliament, for your commitment, and in particular, thank you for the strong engagement of the co-rapporteurs, Jan Olbrycht and Margarida Marques.  The revision of the MFF ceilings confirms the priorities that the Commission presented back in July, and that were strongly supported by this House. It provides around 80% of the original proposal with a balanced combination of new funds and redeployments. It is a very good result, despite, of course, some difficult choices. It shows Europe’s ambition and resolve to find common solutions to our shared priorities. Your vote for today’s package is about giving our Union the ability to act at various levels.  Let me highlight the five key elements of the revision. First, the Ukraine Facility is a clear signal of our steadfast commitment to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. It provides predictable and stable financial support to cater for Ukraine’s immediate needs, recovery and modernisation on its path towards the European Union, totalling EUR 50 billion until 2027. I thank the European Parliament, and the co-rapporteurs Eider Gardiazabal Rubial and Michael Gahler in particular, for making the agreement possible. The set-up reflects the exceptional circumstances of the war, and should not constitute a blueprint for future programmes. In this context, the Commission has a formal statement on its interinstitutional prerogatives. We have sent it for inclusion in the verbatim record of this debate. It is now crucial that the facility can enter into force as quickly as possible, so that we can make the first disbursement under the exceptional bridge financing still in March. To address Ukraine’s urgent financing needs, we are working with Ukraine to ensure that everything is in place.  Second, this is a shared priority, it is about managing migration and relations with our external partners. The review packed this up with an additional EUR 2 billion to support the new pact on migration and asylum. In addition, EUR 7.6 billion will help our partners in the Western Balkans, Southern Neighbourhood and beyond.  Third, it is about European competitiveness. The Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform, better known as STEP, will support European leadership in critical technologies in the fields of digital and deep tech, clean tech and biotech. And I agree with some of you who have criticised the fact that not the full proposal was finally accepted, but this was the outcome of the discussions we had and this is what was achievable. But bottom line, I think a lot also in that context could be achieved. And, as it was rightly mentioned and highlighted by some of you, STEP will pull funding from 11 different programmes – amongst them cohesion policy funds, the European Defence Fund, InvestEU, Horizon Europe, the Innovation Fund, the Recovery and Resilience Funds – to both strengthen our Union’s open strategic autonomy and bolster its long-term competitiveness. For STEP to reach its full potential, Member States and managing authorities must now steer sufficient EU funds towards these cutting-edge technologies. The success of STEP will depend on our collective ambition, and I would like to extend a special thanks here to José Manuel Fernandez and Cristian Ehler. For us, it’s about strengthening our emergency response. We will increase our capacities for emergency response inside and outside the Union. That is why the Solidarity Emergency Aid Reserve will be reorganised and increased by EUR 1.5 billion. As the past year has proved, it is essential to be able to respond to unforeseen circumstances. We thus also increase the flexibility instrument by EUR 2 billion.  And finally fifth, providing a structural solution to the increases in interest costs, as repeatedly requested by the European Parliament, a new mechanism, over and above the MFF ceilings, will offer a structural solution to the increase in interest costs of the EU’s recovery fund, NextGenerationEU. This was all achieved within the EU budget framework, preserving the unity of the budget, and the role of the budgetary authority and the prerogative of the institutions. This is a good result for the European Union as a whole and thus for cities, companies and regions.  I count on your support for the revision of the Multiannual Framework, the Ukraine Facility, and the creation of STEP. Building on your hopefully strong vote today, we will translate the political agreement into action and this as soon as possible. We will present a draft amending budget for 2024 and necessary legislative adjustments to implement the revision still this week. This will feed the agreed additional funds concretely into our running budget and actual programmes. I hope that the European Parliament and the Council can deliberate swiftly on these proposals in this sense. We look forward to further working with you on strengthening our Union. And thank you very much again for this extremely valuable decision today.  The Commission recalls that, under Article 17 TEU and Article 317 TFEU, the implementation of the budget remains its own responsibility and is part of its institutional prerogatives under the Treaties. It considers that the decisions related to payments to Ukraine under the Ukraine Facility belong to such budget implementation. The Commission regrets that the text agreed by the co-legislator provides for Council implementing decisions under Article 291 TFEU for the adoption of these measures. It considers that the solution agreed by the co-legislator could be exceptionally justified in light of the very specific circumstances of the Ukraine Facility – a medium-term single instrument of high geopolitical importance adapted to the uncertainty and unprecedented challenge of supporting a country at war with direct implications for the security of the Union.  This solution should not be considered as a precedent for any other Union spending programme.