After more than a year and a half of discussion among the delegations from the various Member
States, the Council succeeded in arriving at a compromise on a common position on the Commission
proposal for a Regulation on decentralized cooperation. The common position deviated substantially
from the original Commission proposal and from the position of the European Parliament at first
reading, particularly as regards:
.commitology (reinstatement of a type II(b) committee for certain financial decisions),
.the budget, a reference amount of ECU 18 m over three years (1998-2000) being quoted in the
Regulation,
.the period of application of the Regulation: initially it was to apply for an indefinite period, but the
Council decided that it should apply only until 31.12.2000.
As regards the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading, only two were incorporated by
the Council: one referring to the European Parliament's resolutions on the field in question and one
concerning the development of human resources, but without specifying that the concern was to
improve the training of beneficiaries. The amendments on improving openness and the provision of
information to the European Parliament were not incorporated, and nor were those concerning the
eligibility of developing countries for certain supply contracts provided for under such cooperation.
In addition to the above-mentioned fundamental changes, the Council added a series of further new
points to the basic text:
- the introduction of criteria for evaluating projects and programmes proposed for Community
financing;
- the introduction of strict decision-making procedures for the projects funded: decisions relating to
grants of more than ECU 1 million will be taken using the type II(b) committee procedure; general
annual guidelines will be examined by the various geographically determined committees competent.�