Coronavirus Fund
Dear Budget,
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:
How much has the EU given to EU Countries to help tackle the Coronavirus and does the EU expect to get that money back?
Yours faithfully,
Mr Dillon Crawford
Dear Mr Crawford,
Thank you for your request for access to documents.
Unfortunately, you have not indicated your postal address. This is necessary for registering and handling your request in line with the procedural requirements.
Please send us your full postal address at your earliest convenience. Pending your reply, we reserve the right to refuse the registration of your request. Alternatively, you may use the electronic form available on the Europa website:
http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regdoc/....
Yours sincerely,
DG Budget Access to Documents team
European Commission
Directorate-General for Budget
Unit 03 – Strategic Coordination and Communication
[DG BUDG request email]
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium
Dear Mr Crawford,
We refer to your application dated 09/11/2020 in which you make a request
for access to documents, registered on 10/11/2020 under the
above-mentioned reference number.
Regulation 1049/2001 applies only to requests for access to existing
documents, i.e. "any content whatever its medium (written on paper or
stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audio-visual recording)
concerning a matter relating to the policies, activities and decisions
falling within the institution's sphere of responsibility" (Article 3 of
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001). The information you request is not
contained in any existing documents and is, therefore considered as a
request for information processed in accordance with the [1]Code of Good
Administrative Behaviour. The information you request is given below.
Since its outbreak in the early months of this year, the Commission has
made every effort to maximize the use of EU budget resources to help
tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. These actions, comprising the Commission’s
response, support all fronts and combine short, medium and long-term
initiatives.
The aim of many Commission proposals in 2020 was the quick mobilisation of
appropriations for emergency measures related to COVID-19.
· European state aid rules and fiscal rules have been temporarily
relaxed so that governments can provide liquidity to the economy to
support citizens and companies, in particular SMEs, and save jobs in the
EU.
· The Emergency Support Instrument has been reinforced to help the
healthcare sector fight the coronavirus pandemic.
· The solidarity support instrument SURE has been adopted to help
workers keep their incomes and help businesses stay afloat by providing
loans on favourable terms to Member States. Specifically, these loans help
Member States to finance national short-time work schemes, and other
similar crisis-response measures, without any impact on the headroom. The
headroom is the difference between the Own Resources ceiling of the
long-term budget (the maximum amount of funds that the Union can request
from Member States to cover its financial obligations) and the ceiling on
the actual spending (MFF payment ceiling). A sufficient headroom is
necessary to ensure that the Union is able – under any circumstances – to
fulfil its financial obligations, even in times of economic downturns.
This is important for maintaining the high EU credit rating and will be
used to raise funds on the capital markets under the recovery instrument
Next Generation EU (more information below).
· Also, thanks to two packages of measures, the Coronavirus
Response Investment Initiative (CRII) and the Coronavirus Response
Investment Initiative Plus (CRII+), cohesion policy has been mobilised in
full to flexibly respond to the rapidly emerging needs in the most exposed
sectors, such as healthcare, SMEs and labour markets, and to help the most
affected territories in Member States as well as their citizens. This
provides inter alia immediate liquidity to Member States' budgets and
helps to frontload the yet unallocated cohesion policy funding.
Additionally, eligibility rules have been adapted for cohesion policy
programmes to better address the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic.
In terms of direct EU financial support, about EUR 80 billion has been
made available to tackle the various consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic
in 2020. This is very often a shared responsibility with Member States as,
for many programmes, the Commission prepared the necessary conditions for
quick mobilisation with its legislative proposals, but relies on how these
are eventually implemented on the ground by Member States and its
designated implementation bodies. Indeed, most of the funding concerns an
extension of existing actions financed through budgetary reallocations and
so does not require additional contributions from the Member States.
Furthermore, the Commission proposed on 27 May 2020 a Next Generation EU
instrument of €750 billion as well as the targeted reinforcements to the
EU’s long-term EU budget for 2021-2027 aiming to kick-start the recovery
of our continent, protect and create jobs. The total financial firepower
of the EU budget would amount to more than €1.8 trillion.
On 10 November 2020, the European Parliament and EU Member States in the
Council reached a political agreement on the next multiannual financial
framework, the EU’s long-term budget and the temporary recovery instrument
Next Generation EU.
The bulk of the funding from Next Generation EU will be used to support
public investment and key structural reforms in the Member States,
concentrated where the crisis impact and resilience needs are greatest.
Together, the long term EU budget and Next Generation EU will help build a
green, digital and resilient continent which is apt to address the
challenges of the future.
Regarding the repayment of Next Generation EU and the Member States’
contributions to future EU budget, it cannot be calculated ex-ante as it
will depend on the actual amount of EU expenditure and the composition of
the EU revenue. The Commission has proposed new own resources and will
come forward with further proposals for a basket of new own resources. The
new own resources would help finance the repayment of the market finance
raised under Next Generation EU. The funds raised for grants and
guarantees will be repaid by 2058 at the latest. The loans will be repaid
by the borrowing Member States.
For more information please see:
Overview of the Commission’s response
[2]https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-trav...
Jobs and economy during the coronavirus pandemic
[3]https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-trav...
Recovery Plan for Europe
[4]https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/recov...
Overview of the sources of revenue of the EU budget:
[5]https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/eu-bu...
Code of Good Administrative Behaviour
[6]https://ec.europa.eu/info/files/code-goo...
Yours sincerely,
DG Budget Access to Documents team
[7]cid:image001.gif@01D3232E.EB1C8920
European Commission
Directorate-General for Budget
Unit 03 – Strategic Coordination and Communication
[8][DG BUDG request email]
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium