On the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on enhancing police cooperation in relation to the prevention, detection and investigation of migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings, and on enhancing Europol’s support to preventing and combating such crimes and amending Regulation (EU) 2016/794

for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on enhancing police cooperation in relation to the prevention, detection and investigation of migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings, and on enhancing Europol’s support to preventing and combating such crimes and amending Regulation (EU) 2016/794

(COM(2023)0754 – C90431/2023 – 2023/0438(COD))

The Committee on Budgets has carried out a budgetary assessment of the proposal under Rule 58 of the Rules of Procedure and has reached the following conclusions:

A.whereas the estimated financial impact of the proposal for the period 2025-2027 amounts to EUR 48.9 million of operational appropriations under Heading 5, and EUR 1.1 million of administrative appropriations under Heading 7, which is under pressure due to increasing needs and negative margins;

B.whereas operational appropriations will be made available in part through the margin (EUR 20 million) and in part via budgetary offsetting against the Border Management and Visa Instrument (BMVI) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF) programmes;

C.whereas the required administrative appropriations will be covered by appropriations from the Directorate-General (DG) that are already assigned to management of the action and/or have been redeployed within the DG;

D.whereas the proposal requires the use of human resources for the parent DG, which will be met by staff from the DG who are already assigned to management of the action and/or have been redeployed within the DG, together if necessary with any additional allocation which may be granted to the managing DG under the annual allocation procedure and in the light of budgetary constraints;

1.Welcomes the increase of 50 full-time equivalent posts (FTEs) proposed for Europol for the period 2025-2027 but disagrees with the distribution of these posts to 10 administrator-grade (AD) temporary agents, 20 contract agents and 20 seconded national experts owing to differences in the nature of the functions that staff on these contract types can undertake and the requirements of Europol’s new mandate; points out the greater need for temporary agents and therefore calls for the distribution to be modified in the following way: 20 AD temporary agents, 10 contract agents and 20 seconded national experts; considers that this distribution would better enable the efficient implementation of the Regulation, in line with Article 53(2) of the Europol Regulation and Europol internal procedures;

2.Notes that the 50 FTEs proposed will be offset by a reduction in the future reinforcement of Frontex staff according to the Commission’s proposal; underlines that redeployments from other programmes and priorities should be limited and examined with due care; voices its concern that, according to the proposal, Europol and Frontex would need to agree on the concrete modalities of the transfer of staff between the two agencies, while respecting the criteria and timeline established by the co-legislators; calls on the Commission to include in the proposal the criteria for staff transfers; emphasises that these modalities should be set by the co-legislators;

3.Voices concern about the continuous transfer of funding between EU home affairs funds, particularly in recent years, namely affecting the BMVI and the ISF; calls on the Commission to provide a justified explanation to co-legislators and specify the amounts redeployed from each programme clearly in the legislative financial statement; notes the impact of the staffing increase of 50 FTEs being offset by a reduction in the future reinforcement of Frontex staff;

4.Determines that the proposal is compatible with the ceilings of the multiannual financial framework and the system of own resources;

5.Determines that the proposal is compatible with the Interinstitutional Agreement, but regrets the fact that before presenting this proposal, the Commission did not produce an impact assessment concerning the proposed measures or offer a plausible explanation for not doing so despite the proposal’s impact on the resources of Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, and the parent DG; emphasises that impact assessments should ensure that policy changes remain cost-effective and do not compromise the effectiveness of justice and home affairs agencies; regrets that, in the absence of a prior impact assessment presented by the Commission, Parliament therefore commissioned its own alternative analysis;