What changed between the plenary report and the adopted text

60. Calls for quarterly structured dialogues between the Commissioners responsible and Parliament’s committees responsible, to guarantee real-time information flows and reinforce democratic oversight;

61. Calls on the Council to keep the process fact-based and objective, and to stick as closely as possible to the Commission’s proposals; urges the Council, furthermore, not to transform the process leading to the adoption of measures into a bargaining chip;

62. Underlines that clear and proactive communication is key to strengthening trust in the EU institutions and countering populist narratives; recalls that the Conditionality Regulation imposes on the Commission the obligation to provide information and guidance to final recipients and beneficiaries via a website or internet portal, together with adequate tools to enable final recipients or beneficiaries to inform the Commission about any breach of these obligations that directly affects them; stresses that the website or portal should also enable citizens, final recipients and beneficiaries, and economic operators to find all relevant decisions and assessments under the conditionality mechanism and follow the whole life cycle of conditionality cases, from notification to eventual lifting of measures, in order to enhance transparency and prevent misinformation;

63. Calls, in this regard, on the Commission to publish fact sheets featuring every future action under the Conditionality Regulation, setting out the type and assessment of breaches, indicative internal timelines for each procedural phase, the impact on the EU budget, including suspended amounts, and, where relevant, the proportionality of its proposed measures, since clear, accessible information is essential to counter disinformation and to demonstrate to citizens that the EU acts consistently and fairly when addressing rule of law breaches; invites the Commission to ensure that the relevant information is disseminated to the final recipients and beneficiaries concerned and to the wider public, while ensuring compliance with confidentiality rules and data protection; asks the Commission, furthermore, to actively counter disinformation related to the application of the regulation;

64. Considers that, while the Conditionality Regulation is primarily designed to protect the EU budget from risks deriving from breaches of the rule of law, there is merit in exploring ways of strengthening the protection of the EU budget against violations of the other values enshrined in Article 2 TEU; recalls that the EU budget is not neutral to breaches of democracy, equality and fundamental rights, which can have tangible financial implications; is of the opinion that Article 6 of the Financial Regulation provides the legal basis for action in cases of such breaches; invites the Commission to assess the extension of conditionality instruments in cases where serious and systemic violations of other Article 2 TEU values affect the EU budget;

65. Urges the Commission to address the fragmentation of responsibilities for rule of law monitoring and enforcement actions within its services and the related risks, by streamlining competences and responsibilities concerning rule of law matters in a more transparent and efficient structure, in order to ensure coherence, consistency, transparency and timely enforcement, as well as enhanced communication with Parliament and the Member States;

66. Calls on the Commission to reinforce its investigative capacity by establishing a standing roster of specialised experts capable of assessing complex rule of law breaches, thereby ensuring swifter, technically robust decisions, and to develop an IT system that enables the detection of patterns or similarities in reports received;

67. Encourages the Commission to adopt a more proactive approach in dealing with complaints, and to ensure that complaint procedures under the Conditionality Regulation provide adequate protection for whistle-blowers, particularly those in precarious situations, for whom whistle-blowing poses great risks, in order to incentivise reporting;

68. Calls on the Commission to set up a permanent coordination framework involving all relevant EU agencies and bodies, to ensure early detection and effective investigation of fraud, money laundering and acts of corruption affecting the EU’s financial interests; asks to be given periodic reports on these actions;

69. Calls on the Member States to ensure respect for the rule of law and to swiftly address any identified breaches, so as to protect the EU’s financial interests and prevent the adoption of measures under the Conditionality Regulation; calls, furthermore, for the allocation of adequate resources to national authorities, whose work is essential to ensure that the rule of law is upheld;

70. Invites the ECA to produce a special report assessing the cost-effectiveness of the Conditionality Regulation, including consideration of the administrative burden, deterrence impact and protection of final recipients and beneficiaries;

The Conditionality Regulation and the next MFF

71. Takes note of the aspects related to the rule of law in the Commission proposal for the MFF for 2028-2034, and in particular the introduction of horizontal conditions on respect for the principles of the rule of law and the Charter within the Commission’s NRPP proposal; acknowledges the importance of strong safeguards for the respect for EU values throughout the implementation of EU funds; expresses concern, however, that the Commission proposal remains insufficient because it:

(a) neither simplifies substantially the rule of law toolbox nor lays out the coordination of the different rule of law instruments, but rather introduces overlap and contradiction, thereby risking creating a fragmented system of parallel instruments,

(b) provides for the triggering of measures for breaches of the horizontal rule of law condition by a Council implementing decision, with no decision-making role for Parliament in the procedure,

(c) may lead to the use of the Council implementing decision on account of the link provided for between the rule of law conditionality and the conditionality on the Charter, making the application of the latter more difficult,

(d) does not require a sufficiently direct link between a breach of the rule of law and the protection of the EU budget, as is the case for the conditionality mechanism, which raises issues of legal certainty,

(e) makes it clear that the Commission continues to consider the conditionality mechanism an instrument of last resort;

72. Deplores the overlaps with the conditionality mechanism introduced by the Commission’s proposal on the MFF for 2028-2034; calls for a unified, coherent and comprehensive framework across all EU funding programmes under the umbrella of the Conditionality Regulation, covering both enabling conditions that must be fulfilled in order to access EU funding and measures to freeze or withhold funds when relevant conditions are no longer met; requests that the Commission consolidate all rule of law tools into a single framework that provides clear, objective and transparent criteria for application and that clarifies how it will ensure coordination of these tools; insists that, if such consolidation is not ensured under the current legislative framework or through the negotiations for the next MFF, the Commission should propose amendments to the Conditionality Regulation that would also put Parliament and the Council on an equal footing in the implementation of the legislation;

73. Acknowledges that the Commission proposes, in the context of the NRPPs, the possibility of making available again, to programmes in direct or indirect management, funding that has been decommitted because of a lack of remedial measures in response to an identified breach of the rule of law under the Conditionality Regulation; requests clarification as to how such decommitted amounts could be channelled to other programmes; insists that the decision to use decommitted funds is a prerogative of the budgetary authority in the framework of the annual budgetary procedure and should not be at the discretion of the Commission;

74. Emphasises that all decisions to fully or partially suspend EU funding must be based on clear, objective and transparent criteria and procedures, as opposed to opaque negotiations involving bargaining; demands that EU funds be withheld where essential requirements are not fulfilled and that frozen funds be released to the Member States concerned only once they have fully implemented meaningful reforms and verifiably demonstrated compliance with the rule of law in practice;

75. Raises serious concerns that, in accordance with the Commission’s proposals, no institution or body responsible will be expected to verify the underlying costs of measures under the NRPPs, and financing that is not linked to actual costs would become the primary method of budget implementation; warns that this approach will severely hinder the ability of the Commission to determine or measure the financial consequences of rule of law breaches; warns, furthermore, that this would undermine the Treaty-based democratic scrutiny role of Parliament, as one arm of the budgetary authority and as the EU’s discharge authority, as well as the important role of the ECA; considers that the cost-effectiveness, traceability and transparency of financial flows from the payments to the final recipients, including subcontractors, must be guaranteed through an interoperable IT system, since this is the only way of establishing and quantifying the budgetary impact of rule of law breaches; stresses that the Commission must improve the accuracy and precision of the information to be shared with Parliament;

°

° °

76. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the European Court of Auditors, the Court of Justice of the European Union and to the governments and parliaments of the Member States.