On the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Union Resettlement Framework and amending Regulation (EU) No 516/2014 of the European Parliament and the Council

Committee on Budgets

2016/0225(COD)

3.3.2017

DRAFT OPINION

PA_Legapp

SHORT JUSTIFICATION

The rapporteur is of the opinion that the EU is in urgent need of an integrated, sustainable migration policy, based on solidarity and fair burden-sharing between all Member States. He believes that the creation of legal ways to seek refuge in Europe could avoid tragic deaths at Mediterranean Sea and break down the business model of migrant smugglers.

The rapporteur supports linking the proposed recast of the ‘Dublin regulation’ to the present proposal, so that the number of resettled persons is added to the number of applications for international protection for the purpose of calculating the corrective allocation mechanism. The rapporteur is also in favour of establishing a link with the recast Eurodac regulation so that data on resettled persons will be stored in the Eurodac system.

In terms of its budgetary implications, despite the absence of a well defined quota of persons to be resettled in the proposal, the rapporteur wishes that these resettlement plans should be ambitious and that the means necessary for their implementation be made available.

The rapporteur welcomes the proposal to allocate EUR 10,000 from the Union budget to Member States for each resettled person, to be paid from AMIF, on the basis of Union resettlement plans adopted on an annual basis by the Council. The rapporteur understands the removal of co-financing from the EU budget for resettlement under national resettlement programs in view to ensure the necessary funding of these European resettlement programs.

Finally, the rapporteur wishes to emphasize that two arms of the Budgetary Authority must have full information on the financial implications of the next annual resettlement plan at the time of the presentation of the proposal on the draft Union annual budget for the following year.

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The Committee on Budgets calls on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, as the committee responsible, to propose that Parliament adopts its position at first reading taking over the Commission proposal.