On the proposal for a Council Decision amending Decision (EU) 2021/1764 on the Association of the Overseas Countries and Territories with the European Union including relations between the European Union on the one hand, and Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark on the other for the period 2028 to 2034

for the Committee on Development on the proposal for a Council Decision amending Decision (EU) 2021/1764 on the Association of the Overseas Countries and Territories with the European Union including relations between the European Union on the one hand, and Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark on the other for the period 2028 to 2034

(COM(2025)0599 – C100248/2025 – 2025/0264(CNS))

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:

The Committee on Budgets,

A.whereas the proposal establishes a framework for the association of the European Union’s Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) including Greenland;

B.whereas the proposal is aimed at fostering cooperation with OCTs and Greenland, including in strategic sectors such as critical raw materials, renewable energy and sustainable tourism;

C.whereas the programme simplifies the existing funding architecture but remains separate from Global Europe due to its distinct legal nature;

1.Considers that the programme envelope should be increased from EUR 999 000 000 to [number from MFF Interim Report in current and 2025 prices] to enable the Union to step up its support for OCTs and to harness the full potential of a mutually beneficial partnership;

2.Welcomes the Commission’s proposal to allocate EUR 530 million in funding to Greenland given its growing geostrategic importance in the Arctic region;

3.Considers that sufficient human resources must be available from the outset and throughout the entire programming period of the next MFF to ensure an effective implementation of the OCT programme;

4.Deplores the lack of a limited breakdown of the budget of the OCT programme; notes that this would give the Commission great latitude to shift and decide on spending priorities during implementation; recommends giving consideration to fixing indicative sub-envelopes for the OCTs;

5.Deplores the lack of a sufficiently detailed indicative budgetary nomenclature; considers that this will hamper oversight and the budgetary authority’s ability to steer accurately policy priorities in the annual budgetary procedure; expresses concerns that the overly aggregated budgetary architecture would facilitate transfers not subject to the decision of the budgetary authority; insists on the need to introduce specific OCT thematic and geographical budget lines to enhance oversight by the budgetary authority and transparency in the allocation of funds;

6.Takes note that the proposal foresees the possibility to provide loans and budgetary guarantees to OCTs through the Global Europe programme; stresses that the budgetary implications of such borrowing and lending operations must be clearly identified, transparently presented and carefully monitored throughout the MFF period; insists that all decisions related to such operations must fully respect the powers of the co-legislators and the prerogatives of the budgetary authority; underlines that the appropriate provisioning for loans and budgetary guarantees must be constituted from the OCT programme;

7.Takes note of the proposed complementarity between the OCT programme and other programmes such as the Global Europe Programme and the European Competitiveness Fund; stresses that enhanced complementarity between instruments must not come at the expense of traceability of expenditure or the prerogatives of the budgetary authority; underlines that the contribution from other programmes must be explicitly identifiable at all stages of the budgetary cycle;

8.Stresses that the use of external assigned revenue under the OCT programme must be clearly circumscribed, fully transparent and subject to effective parliamentary scrutiny; takes note, in that regard, of the provisions relating to additional financial contributions by Member States, third countries and other donors; underlines that, should the lead committee consider amending provisions relating to external assigned revenue, this should be done in coordination with the Committee on Budgets and the other committees in order to ensure a consistent approach.

As part of its budgetary assessment, the Committee on Budgets also submits the following amendments to the proposal:

Amendment 1

Proposal for a Council decision

Recital 10 a (new)

Or. en

Amendment 2

Proposal for a Council decision

Article 1 – paragraph 1 – point 5

Decision (EU) 2021/1764

Article 75 – paragraph 1

Or. en