Younous OMARJEE (The Left, FR), Chair of the Committee on Regional Development (REGI), and Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), rapporteur, give a joint press conference on Brexit Adjustment Reserve, in the European Parliament in Brussels. This transcription speech is the result of an automatic process. Check against delivery.

Brussels

Brexit (T)

EU - United Kingdom (T)

press conference

ARIMONT, Pascal (EPP, BE)

OMARJEE, Younous (The Left, FR)

Committee on Regional Development

TCA (T)

Press conference on Brexit Adjustment Reserve by Younous OMARJEE (The Left, FR), REGI Chair, and Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), rapporteur

SOUNDBITE (Original), Press officer, Good morning and welcome to this press conference on the Brexit adjustment reserve. The Committee on Regional Development adopted yesterday its position on the Brexit adjustment reserve. This is a first step to start negotiations with the Council to decide on the final shape of the two. Talks with the Council will start immediately after the confirmation of the mandate by the plenary sitting in June. We have with us today the chair of the Regional Development Committee, Mr Younous Omarjee and the Brexit adjustment rapporteur, Mr Pascal Arimont. They will make a brief introduction. Then we'll give the floor to your questions, Mr Omarjee.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Younous OMARJEE (The Left, FR), Thank you and good morning everyone. Thank you very much for attending our press conference. As you know, the Regional Development Committee is responsible for dealing with a Brexit adjustment reserve. And there are two associated committees, Peche and the Budget Committee. Yesterday, we proceeded to the vote on the compromises and on the final regulation for the Brexit adjustment reserve.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Younous OMARJEE (The Left, FR), And what I can tell you is that we have received a very strong mandate from the Regional Development Committee, and that mandate allows us to engage in negotiations. We had 35 in favour, 1 against and 6 abstentions. So I would like to thank the rapporteur, Pascal Arimont, who successfully found unity, a consensus that is fairly unusual on what is a very difficult subject. And you're aware that these are issues which are very important.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Younous OMARJEE (The Left, FR), Now, the rapporteur will go through the various points where we have amended the Commission proposal.We have come up with points on which we can reach convergence with the Council and on some points we disagreed with the Council on a number of points. So what we intend to do now that we have this clear mandate is to make rapid progress in the negotiations, because we are aware that in the European regions and any sectors which are affected by the harmful consequences of Brexit, the Brexit adjustment reserve is something which is being eagerly awaited.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Younous OMARJEE (The Left, FR), So we hope to make rapid progress and we do hope that the Council will take the same attitude, will demonstrate sufficient flexibility so as to ensure that the 5 billion euros will indeed be able to go out to the regions and help mitigate the impact of Brexit

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), Thank you very much. Thank you for your kind words, chair, and thank you for your support over the last four or five months, I mean, that has been very valuable. I also want to welcome all of the journalists who are attending today's press conference. When we received this mandate as a committee at the start of the year. We were told three things.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), First, we needed to ensure that the Brexit adjustment reserve needed to be used very effectively. There are five billion available that need to be used effectively, and they needed to be distributed. Those funds needed to be distributed fairly between the member states. And thirdly, we were told that we needed to get on with our work fast, not that we should skip over details, but by June, ideally, we should have completed all of the negotiations so that the moneys that are urgently needed in the regions and in the companies could be distributed.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), When I look at the text that was approved yesterday, I think that we have done some solid work. I think that we have produced a very efficient text and yet it does allow us to distribute the funds where they're most needed. We've made sure that there is a balance in the allocation of funds, in the methodologies used to share out the money and to look at the figures available to each member state.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), And we also have managed to complete our work by the end of May, which means that if we receive a mandate in the plenary next week, then we will be able to start trialogue discussions the following week. And that means that by the end of June or early July, we should then have a finished text that will ensure that we are able to disperse the money. We have produced a number of compromises.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), I should stress that this is work that isn't just all my own work. There has been a great deal of work done by other colleagues, including colleagues from other groups who've helped me a great deal in drafting this text. They've helped me to find compromise. Now, this isn't always standard. You don't always find this level of consensus across the board in the European Parliament. And I think that this is evidence of the extent to which people are being affected by the economic impact of Brexit.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), I think this demonstrates that when people need to work together to help those affected, we can do it. So the vote yesterday has given us a very strong mandate. So I would like to thank everyone who voted in favour of the mandate and the 17 compromises. There are some points where we are very close to the Council, but there are some other points on which we are clearly on a very different path.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), Let me just run you through a few of the key points on the reference period during which investments have been made or can be made. We have chosen from the 1st of July 2019 to the 31st of December 2023. There were alternative proposals in the air, but we reached an agreement on a period that is somewhere in the middle of all of the different proposals that allows us to recognise those people who've already made investments. Now, the total amount of money available is five billion, five billion as calculated in 2018.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), That amount of money represents the entire reserve, there are two different tranches, the first tranche is going to be paid out in 2021 and that's over four billion euros will be paid out in 21. And then in the second tranche, just over one billion will be paid out in 2024. So we will look at the actual usage and expenditure. Anything that hasn't actually been used will go back into the reserve and be redistributed.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), That's why we're slightly different to the Council. Now, the really difficult thing in all of this was coming up with calculation methods. We try to engage with the various committees to come up with a balanced solution. We started with different ideas, with different criteria. But our approach has always been that the criteria calculated by the commission should be maintained. But we shouldn't look only at the four billion of the first tranche, but also have a similar allocation method for the second tranche.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), And we have managed to do that. And I can tell you that we have worked hard with a lot of Excel spreadsheets and lots of figures, and that has brought us to yesterday's outcome. It's not a coincidence that it matches what the Council agreed. We did have a lot of contact with the various delegations and representatives, so we really have worked together to ensure that this part of the proposal is not going to cause further months of disputes.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), So the Council and the Parliament have agreed on the distribution method. We have exactly the same figures in our proposal. So I think this part of the draft legislation is therefore ready to roll. So the trialogue will not have to go into that because normally the money in the allocation is the most thorny issue. You're familiar with the figures. Now, what will happen is that the most money is going to go to those countries which are hardest hit.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), Now the question is, how do you assess the extent of the impact? What we've always done is we've looked at the ratio of trade with the UK in terms of imports and exports. We have then divided that by the GDP. So that reflects the dependency of any given economy on trading with the UK. It also addresses the question of the extent to which a member state now has opportunities to absorb or cushion the impact.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), So we've achieved all of that and the Committee was happy with our outcome. Therefore, we were given the green light yesterday. And finally, there was one real priority for us, and we work very closely with the Fisheries Committee on this point, and this is fisheries now, Brexit is always referring to quotas, catches, fisheries and the trade and cooperation agreement with the UK. We have a reduction of 25 percent up to 2026.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), And we wanted to address this issue and therefore we wanted to dedicate seven percent of the resources to fisheries. This was a very clear message that we received from the Pech committee. They emphasised the impact of Brexit on the fishing industry and also the symbolic nature of the industry. So we have earmarked some of the reserve funds. We have also focussed on ensuring that the money go to a SMEs or smaller operators, so small fishing operators, large companies are always better at absorbing any harmful consequences or dealing with them.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Pascal ARIMONT (EPP, BE), So we wanted to make sure that the money went to smaller operators. So in conclusion. This is a text that most of our colleagues were able to live with, the text will go into the trialogue discussions with the Portuguese presidency in 10 days time. I have to say, this is a text that I wholeheartedly committed to, and we hope that we will be able to negotiate in tandem with the Council, as always, to assure ensure that this money gets to the people who need it, those people who have been most seriously affected by Brexit.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Younous OMARJEE (The Left, FR), If I may, I'm sure you've noticed this as well, but I just wanted to highlight this. Regional policy again. I think shows how it can actually work in times of crisis during the pandemic, its regional policy that actually stepped in through the CRII and CRII plus programmes. I think with this reserve, the Bar, we've said that we've shown that during a crisis, it's regional policy that can step in and help these regions. Pascal Arimont already said this, our committee is very much focussed on ensuring the proper governance management of these funds. That was important in the negotiations and in the future negotiations with Council.