ECR Group instrumental in design of covid19 declaration, although some concerns remain
In the first week of May, the European Committee of the Regions adopted a declaration on the state of the struggle against the covid-19 pandemic. In the statement, the CoR gives its thoughts regarding the shortcomings and origins in dealing with this crisis, where it believes more can be done and concludes with calling on the European Commission to take a variety of actions.
The ECR Group was heavily involved in the drafting of this statement, as such many of the ECR points (amendments) were incorporated into the statement. These points include economic relief, such as calling on the Commission to facilitate and fasten direct payments for farmers, as well as calling on the Commission to facilitate the imports of personal protective equipment (PPE) for private companies that are obliged to use it. The ECR Group was also successful in lobbying the CoR to declare that these imports should be exempted from the value added tax and other import duties to a degree that does not put EU producers of PPE in a disadvantaged position.
The ECR Group's further amendments included the removal of references to the EU carbon tax and a reference to a carbon border tax instead. The motivation for these amendments was to ensure that EU business located in some of the less developed regions are not faced with new costs that would make them struggle to compete in difficult times.
While the ECR Group played an influential role in drafting this declaration, there were other various policy proposals too which were difficult for the ECR Group to accept. These included a call for new EU taxes and centralisation of health, social and economic policy at an EU level. The ECR Group did not support the provision that objected to any freezing or postponing the implementation of any existing EU legislation. Our Members believe we need to be flexible during the crisis and some of the potentially most burdensome EU legislation must be reviewed.
Considering these reservations, most of the ECR members abstained during the final vote on the adoption of the declaration. The resolution was adopted with 133 votes in favour, 24 abstentions and 16 votes against.