The European Parliament overwhelmingly approves the most ambitious EU budgets

The European Parliament has given the green light this Wednesday to the EU budgetary framework for 2021-2027, the basis of the recovery fund against covid, a joint effort of solidarity of 1.8 trillion euros that marks a huge political leap in history of the community club.

For the first time in more than 60 years, the Union will go into massive debt to inject hundreds of billions of euros in subsidies, especially in the countries most affected by the pandemic such as Spain and Italy.

The launch of the new accounts is accompanied by a regulation that, for the first time, will impose conditionality on the management of funds linked to respect for the rule of law.

The political and budgetary revolution brought about by the new Multiannual Financial Framework (2021-2027) has been approved by an overwhelming majority in Parliament, with 548 votes in favor, 81 against and 66 abstentions.

The agreement, which amounts to 1.8 billion euros between the annual budgets and the recovery fund, has received the support of popular, socialist, liberal and green groups.

"These three words - reason, humanism and freedom - are at the heart of many of the historical decisions we are taking in this year so different from others", said the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, during the debate parliamentarian in Brussels prior to the vote.

The president has encouraged MEPs to support the proposals because "they are making history."

And he has assured that the recovery fund, baptized NextGenerationEU, "can lead to the greatest transformation of the European economy in decades".

The financing of the 750,000 million euros of the fund will turn the European Commission into a kind of European Treasury with a volume of debt issuance comparable to that of Germany or France.

The new European bonds are already emerging as an essential asset for financial markets, a role that will share and even dispute the

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The amortization of the fund over 30 years (at least until 2056) forces the 27 partners to share a mortgage that, in all probability, will trigger greater political, fiscal and economic integration.

And the disbursement of the recovery fund, subject to national plans in accordance with community priorities such as digital or environmental transformation, is already emerging as the future model in the management of structural funds.

The historic change has come, in large part, forced by a Covid-19 pandemic that has already claimed more than 375,000 lives in Europe and has caused the largest economic recession in the history of the EU.

Whoever can save themselves from the first wave of the pandemic, with the closure of borders and the grabbing of medical supplies, gave way to a progressively concerted action that has forged in common recovery plans, joint purchase of vaccines, transfer of patients from some countries to others and general opening of border crossings.

Furthermore, the injection of resources through the fund during 2021 and 2022, above all, is expected to alleviate the economic damage and prevent a breakdown of the internal market.

"There are 1.8 billion euros in solidarity, nowhere else in the world have 27 countries decided to overcome the crisis together," said the leader of the popular, German MEP Manfred Weber.

"Even the richest countries have understood that it was necessary", alluding to a budget effort that was driven by Germany and France but initially ran into resistance from the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.

The objections were overcome in July after five days and four nights of a European summit, one of the longest in the history of the Union.

The agreement of the 27 governments of the Union opened the way to a legislative process that this Wednesday is practically culminated with the vote in Parliament of a battery of legal projects (the regulation of the financial framework; the interinstitutional agreement between Parliament, Council and Commission on budgetary discipline, or the regulation of protection of the financial interests of the EU in case of deficiencies of the rule of law).

The leader of the socialist group, the Spanish MEP Iratxe García, stressed during the debate that unlike the euro crisis, this time the recovery is not based on austerity.

"It is not about cutting back, but about investing, because we are investing in the future, in a more sustainable future, with social investments and with a democratic digital strategy," García stressed.

The processing of the budget package has not been without friction and disputes.

The most bitter, the one related to the conditionality on the rule of law, which led Hungary and Poland to veto the budgets and, rebound, the recovery fund.

The veto was overcome with the Commission's commitment, forged through the six-month presidency of the EU in the hands of Germany, not to apply the new conditionality until the European Court of Justice confirms the legality of the new regulation if any country challenges it. , as Hungary and Poland are likely to do.

The Dutch MEP, Sophie in 't Veld, from the liberal group Renew, has considered the postponement of the full application of the regulation as an unacceptable surrender by the Commission.

And he has asked that the new rule "be applied from the first day of its entry into force."

The draft resolution on the regulations agreed by popular, socialists, liberals and greens also insists on its strict application, without having to wait for new guidelines or wait for any court ruling.

Parliament indicates that in the event that a country challenges the regulation, the institution will appear in the case and ask the court for an expedited process in order to resolve it in a matter of months.

And the resolution warns that Parliament reserves the right to use Article 265 of the EU Treaty, which would allow it to denounce the Commission in case of breach of its legal obligations.