Renew Europe welcomes the agreement reached with the Council on the ‘Rights &Values’ programme on one hand and on the Justice Programme on the other hand for the period 2021-2027. These 2 programmes are at the heart of our group's priorities.
The ‘Rights & Values’ programme will benefit from a significant increase in the budget allocated to it. This is the result of the European Parliament's repeated calls for more financial support for initiatives aimed at protecting our democratic values, the rule of law and fundamental rights.
The parliamentarians obtained the creation of a new ‘Union values’ strand which will be allocated almost half of the ‘Rights and Values’ budget. Each of the other strands will receive a pre-determined percentage of the total budget. On the top of that, 50% of the funds will be allocated to projects led by civil society organisations. This is also a success to be credited to the European Parliament.
The determination of our Renew Europe MEPs has also been decisive to obtain the creation of a specific credit line for the Daphne strand dedicated to the fight addressing violence against women.
The ‘Justice’ programme also comes stronger out of these negotiations. During this difficult negotiation with the Council, one of Renew Europe's priorities was to place the Rule of Law issue as a horizontal principle of the Justice programme. In a political context where illiberal, populist and extremist forces are constantly trying to undermine our edifice of values, this priority is essential. Renew Europe negotiators have thus obtained an increase in funding dedicated to strengthen the Rule of Law. As a result of our efforts the margin of budgetary flexibility shall be used as much as possible for the promotion of the Rule of Law.
Anna Donath, LIBE shadow rapporteur for ‘Rights & Values’ Programme said
"Despite the crisis or perhaps precisely because of the crisis, it is more important than ever to support civil society organisations which can help preserve, monitor and raise awareness about core European values and the Rule of Law. Furthermore, the ‘Rights and Values’ Programme will help us increase civil participation in decision making processes".
Stéphane Séjourné, JURI shadow rapporteur for 'Justice Programme' aded
“With the new ‘Justice’ Programme we agreed upon today, trainings for judges and lawyers will start running from January 2021. I am very pleased to see that we could agree on the Renew Europe proposal to have more money dedicated to programs promoting the Rule of Law. Indeed, a strengthened Rule of Law, access to justice and the independence of the judiciary within the EU lies at the very heart of our political objective.”
Ramona Strugariu, LIBE shadow rapporteur for the J'ustice' Programme concluded:
''I am confident that we concluded today the negotiations on the ‘’ Programme with a balanced text. It was a complex effort, finalised just in time for this programme to be enforced starting 1st of January 2021.
The final budget for the programme will be, according to the outcome negotiations for the 2021-2027 MFF, 305 million EUR and the distribution of the expenditure, as well as the earmarking, reflect one of our main priorities as a political group, namely the enforcement of the rule of law principle and its prevalence in all related programme areas dedicated to justice and the judiciary.
More than 60% of the resources will be allocated to promote the rule of law, independence and impartiality of the judiciary and to promote judicial training, with a view to fostering a common legal, judicial and rule of law culture, as well as to the consistent and effective implementation of the Union’s legal instruments relevant in the context of this programme.
We also managed to commit the flexibility margin of 10% in particular to projects used for the promotion of the rule of law within the Union.
Values and justice are not for trade in the Renew Europe family and we stay committed to this principle in every single negotiation or action that we lead.
Today's agreement speaks for it.''