The Commission's presented its opinion on the 12 amendments, set out by the European Parliament at second reading.
The Commission retained amendments concerning drafting improvements while another requires that the Parliament be informed of the annual guidelines for activities to be funded under the Regulation. One amendment specifies a financial framework of EUR 249 million (over 7 years). This figure represents an acceptable compromise between the initial proposals for Council and Parliament.
Certain other amendments can be accepted in principle, subject to some reformulation. These concern the split comitology arrangement proposed by Parliament, whereby the annual guidelines for the implementation of the Regulation would be subject to a management procedure, while approval of projects of over EUR 2 million would be subject to an advisory procedure.
On the other hand, the amendments not accepted by the Commission relate to:
- the unnecessary reference to the need for substantial financial resources and to environmental disasters;
- the term "serious doubts" which the Commission considers is subjective and not appropriate for a Regulation;
- the evaluations to take into account views of local people;
- to the possible lifting of the requirement for bank guarantees.�