Rule of law breaches will mean less EU funds, MEPs reach deal with Council

Funds from the EU will be linked to the respect of rule of law by member states, the EU Council and MEPs have agreed.

The German president of the council and the MEPs’ negotiators reached a provisional agreement on Thursday morning, on a new general regime of conditionality for the EU budget.

The conditionality regime makes any disbursements of EU cash conditional on the state of rule of law in member states. All EU funds, including resources allocated through the Next Generation EU recovery instrument, are covered.

The provisional agreement with the European Parliament will now be submitted for endorsement by both institutions.

“This is an important milestone in our efforts to finalise the next long-term EU budget and the recovery package. The new conditionality mechanism will strengthen the protection of the EU budget when breaches of the rule of law principles lead to a misuse of EU funds,” Michael Clauß, Permanent Representative of Germany to the EU, said.

“I am very pleased that the good cooperation with the Parliament’s negotiating team allowed us to achieve a rapid agreement. It is time now to find agreement on the rest of the package as well. We have a historic €1.8 trillion financial package on the table. With the second wave of the pandemic hitting member states hard, there is no time to lose.”