What changed

23.01.2024

15.2.2024

Mr Johan Van Overtveldt

BRUSSELS

Subject: Opinion on theGeneral Guidelinesguidelines for the 2025preparation Budgetof –the 2025 budget, Section III – Commission (2023/2220(BUI))

Dear Mr Chair,

Under the procedure referred to above, the Committee on Transport andBudgetary TourismControl has been asked to submit an opinion to your committee. At its meeting of 2923 NovemberJanuary 2023,2024, the committeeCoordinators decided to send the opinion in the form of a letter.

The Committee on Transport andBudgetary TourismControl considered the matter at its meeting of 2322 JanuaryFebruary 2024. At that meeting, it decided to call on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution.resolution:

1. Recalls its strong commitment to the fundamental principles and values enshrined in the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU); encourages the Commission to keep working on gender budgeting and its new methodology to measure the gender impact of Union spending;

2. Stresses that the sound and timely implementation of the budget contributes to addressing more efficiently and effectively the needs and challenges faced by the Union and its citizens in different policy areas; warns that the implementation of the budget under time pressure may lead to an increase in errors and irregularities;

3. Recalls the crucial role the Union budget played in 2022 to address several unforeseen crisis, and that as a result all available flexibility measures in the EU Budget for 2022 had been used; stresses the need for flexibility in the EU Budget for 2025 to address potential new circumstances where EU action is necessary;

4. Stresses the need to protect the EU Budget from any misuse, particularly fraud and corruption, and calls on the Commission to continue to be vigilant and proactive in the current and future cases when the lack of respect for Union values and the Rule of Law affect or threaten to affect the Union’s financial interests using all the tools at its disposal, in particular the conditionality mechanism, in a firmly manner; stresses the need to provide sufficient resources and to strengthen the role of the European anti-fraud office (OLAF), the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO), the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) and the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) in the fight against fraud and corruption; further underscores the importance of establishing a new European authority for countering money laundering and financing of terrorism (AMLA) which will have powers to impose sanctions and penalties; highlights the importance of providing sufficient resources for the authority in order for it to successfully fulfil its mandate;

5. Is concerned that at the end of 2022, total outstanding commitments reached a record high of EUR 450 billion (2021: EUR 341,6 billion); notes that outstanding commitments stayed just below the projected EUR 460 billion in 2023 and are projected to decrease after 2024, when NGEU draws to a close; recalls that repayment of the EU Recovery Instrument borrowing costs is an obligation for the Union and its costs depend both on the market fluctuations in bond yields and the pace of disbursements under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and thus, the costs are inherently unpredictable; stresses that this situation creates risks for agreed EU policies and programmes and for the budget’s ability to respond to emerging needs; insists on the need for the Commission to provide the budgetary authorities with timely and detailed information on the borrowing costs;

6. Recalls the importance of protecting the Union's own resources from any fraudulent irregularity and, to that end, stimulate the cooperation between anti-fraud services and customs agencies to detect, prevent and correct fraud affecting Union revenue; recalls its position on the amended Commission proposals endorsing the introduction of new own resources;

7. Is concerned that the late adoption of several sectoral regulations governing different Union policies, such as the Cohesion policy, resulted in a significant delay in the implementation of the 2021-2027 programming period; highlights Parliament’s full support for the cohesion policy and urges the budgetary authorities to take all the necessary measures in the 2025 EU Budget, such as technical and administrative support, to continue to speed up the implementation of the policies on the ground, while keeping a high focus on compliance with the rules, achievement of results and protection of the financial interests of the Union;

8. Notes the increasing number of legislative proposals for performance based-instruments, which require a specific audit scope to allow the budgetary authorities to effectively track EU funding; stresses the importance of providing such instruments with provisions on the collection and accesses to data on the recipient of the funds for the purpose of audit and control and thus, ensuring the protection of the EU’s financial interests; notes that such proposals have been pushed through inter-institutional negotiations with unnecessary pace;

Yours sincerely,

(signed) Karima Delli

Monika Hohlmeier Isabel García Muñoz

SUGGESTIONS

CONT Chair Rapporteur for the Commission discharge

The Committee on Transport and Tourism calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1. Welcomes the agreement associating Ukraine to the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) programme that enables Ukrainian project promoters to apply for the EU funding for projects of common interest in the transport, energy and digital realms, further improving Ukraine’s connectivity to its EU neighbours that support Ukraine’s integration into the EU Single Market and promoting growth, jobs and competitiveness;

2. Stresses that CEF Transport, which ensures interconnected, safe, smart and sustainable European transport system and infrastructure as well as all the new Union priorities, is a vital tool for the European economy and the Single Market, therefore, a sufficient financial envelop must be a priority; in this regard, welcomes the increase for CEF Transport in 2024 budget in order to strengthen the transport infrastructure, however, stresses that CEF Transport budget line has to further increase significantly to reflect the cuts from the previous years; takes notice of the massive investment needs for decarbonisation of transport and continued rise of the construction and raw material prices, weighing on the new transport and infrastructure projects; welcomes the integration of the Ukrainian transport projects and enhanced military mobility; in this respect, stresses the key priority of completion of the TEN-T network and extension of its corridors towards Ukraine, Moldova and the other partners in the Eastern Neighbourhood;

3. Reiterates that, in light of the illegal, unjustified Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the drastically increasing security threats to the Union, military mobility budget is necessary more than ever; in this context, welcomes the increase for military mobility, however, calls on the Commission to present a sustainable solution that goes beyond the Emergency Instruments; calls on restoring the total budget for military mobility to EUR 6.5 billion over 7 years, as initially foreseen; calls for increased capacity of the infrastructure and optimisation of its use both for civilian and military purposes; stresses that further efforts are necessary to identify the bottlenecks in the physical transport infrastructure of the Member States and to reduce the gaps between the TEN-T and the EU military networks, including by securing funds under the CEF Transport Military Mobility instrument to support the dual-use projects; calls to focus on ensuring the most effective use of the infrastructure when military forces need to move; calls therefore for the adequate budget envelope that meets the strategic needs, ensures high resilience of the infrastructure and supports technologies and access to energy, so that military forces can move substantial capacities within a very short notice, contributing to a well-connected military mobility network with shorter and more secure reaction times;

4. Calls for action to ensure that the funding for the European transport agencies and joint undertakings matches their level of responsibility;

5. Commends the result achieved under the Single European Sky (SES) Air Traffic Management (ATM) Research (SESAR) project – the technological pillar of the Commission’s SES initiative – aimed at modernising ATM and calls to secure the funding that would match its ambitious agenda;

6. Takes notice of the military aviation in Europe that operates in hundreds of military areas and dozens of military airfields; points out that approximately 30% of European military flights adhere to general air traffic rules, while the remainder represents operational air traffic; reminds that military flights are carried out for a wide variety of reasons, such as training exercises, national security (including sovereignty missions) and management of cross-border crises; emphasises for this reason that extensive military involvement in SESAR solutions is paramount to ensure that effective military missions and use of airspace can be aligned with other uses of airspace across Europe;

7. Calls to make it up for the cut in funding to the Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking (CAJU) as it plays a key role in reducing CO2 emissions per passenger from air transport and in ensuring a sufficient contribution to the climate neutrality by 2050;

8. Stresses a particular need to ensure the right level of resources to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to guarantee a high level of safe and sustainable air transport worldwide and to comply with the decarbonisation objectives while facing, among other things, the challenge of certifying innovative technologies and of dealing with critical situations; commends the guidance that EASA provided to the aviation sector throughout the COVID-19 crisis;

9. Calls for an increase in the budget of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) to support the implementation of the newly adopted FuelEU maritime initiative and other responsibilities that may derive from the revision to the agency’s mandate;

10. Insists that the budget of the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) must be set at least as high as the budgets of the other transport-related agencies; emphasises the importance of ensuring that ERA has sufficient means to act as efficient authority, particularly with regard to the implementation of the 4th Railway Package; reminds of the role of ERA in achieving the lasting shift from road to rail together with the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking; furthermore, stresses that funding to the Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking must be increased significantly, in line with the Union’s strategic priority of shifting to rail; calls to provide additional support for completion of TEN-T, as well as for implementation of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) and the cross-border sections;

11. Welcomes the agreement reached on 30 December 2023 by the EU Member States on lifting air and maritime internal border controls with Romania and Bulgaria; urges the Commission to analyse all possible options to defend the right of Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to free movement, ensuring seamless road transport and mobility between Romania and Bulgaria and the rest of the Union to make certain that the Single Market works for all; calls on the Member States to agree on full application of the Schengen acquis in Romania and Bulgaria and to advance discussions in order to lift controls at land borders as soon as possible;

12. Calls for a dedicated EU funding to support sustainable forms of tourism; calls on the Commission to propose a crisis management mechanism to ensure that the tourism sector is adequately prepared for future crises; reiterates its call for creation of a European Agency for Tourism responsible for providing technical and administrative support to micro-enterprises and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to increase their ability to access and make use of the EU funding and financial instruments.

13. Recalls the transport workforce shortages in the EU; calls in this regard to ensure a sufficient support to safety and good working conditions of transport workers as well as to guarantee financing of safe and secure truck parking areas across the EU;

14. Stresses that in 2025, sufficient financial resources should be dedicated specifically to the rural areas across the EU Member States, to complete the missing transport links and to improve the mobility of rural population as well as the development of rural tourism and economy.

ANNEX: ENTITIES OR PERSONS FROM WHOM THE RAPPORTEUR HAS RECEIVED INPUT

The rapporteur declares under hisher exclusive responsibility that heshe did not receive input from any entity or person to be mentioned in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.