Of vetoes, fresh budgets and new funding schemes
The last edition of Culture Action Europe’s News Digest for the year 2020 was sent to our members today. Monthly News Digests, meticulously prepared by the CAE team, keep our members informed about the relevant developments in EU policies related to culture and the arts. Interested in the EU Cultural Policies and would like to remain informed? Consider joining Culture Action Europe as a member and benefit from the myriad of opportunities of being connected at the European level.
This edition of News Digest is an early review of an year that is everything but over in European circles. Budget talks are ongoing and so are negotiations to ensure orderly future relationships between the two shores of the Channel. As we go off the digital press, however, we are still unsure whether the EU Institutions will be able to strike a deal with their British counterparts or to adopt a new Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) in the very next few days.
Post-Brexit relations are still in the spotlight and a deal is threatened by three chapters (level playing field, fisheries and governance): such a political climate does not help bottom-up efforts like the campaign to keep the UK as a third country participating in Creative Europe.
It is also the final showdown on the long-term budget among Member States. Pitifully enough, it coincides also with the final countdown for the budget negotiations both for the next seven-year budget (the infamous MFF) and the Next Generation EU funds that will be directed to finance Europe’s post-pandemic recovery between 2021 and 2023.
As we are nearing the end of the current budgetary period in just three weeks, EU Institutions are making a last ditch-effort to find an agreement on the last pending issues – which are for once not about the size of the expenditure. For more than two weeks now, Hungary and Poland have vetoed the EU’s next budget and the so called “Own Resource Decision” (which would authorise the Union to increase its direct fiscal capacity to repay the debt contracted for financing the Recovery Fund). The two countries are opposing the rule of law conditionality that is featured in the next budget, i.e., Member States that disrespect the rule of law would risk losing access to EU funds.
The situation is still very serious, and EU officials are reviewing the ‘provisional twelfths’ rule: if an agreement is not reached, no more than one twelfth of the budget for the previous year can be spent each month in 2021. This would result in a generalised freezing of much EU spending at a time when it is critically needed and would badly impact beneficiaries of EU programmes.
A political solution will then have to be found by this week at the European Council on the agenda for 10-11 December, if Member States want to ensure an operational budget for EU programmes in force on 1 January 2021. A structured cooperation of 25 Member States on the Recovery Fund to overcome Hungary and Poland’s vetoes is also on the table.
The delay is already quite relevant and might imply that many calls will be issued later than expected, despite extra efforts by the EU’s managing authorities.
This and more available for Culture Action Europe members on the CAE Members Reserved Area of the website.