The Parliament has therefore voted against the Council common position and the EU Commission’s proposal, deleting the proposed principle of delegating management of part of the funds to Member States. According to the rapporteur Marie Anne Isler Béguin (Group of Greens), the European Commission must continue to keep the control on and responsibility for the quality of environmental projects, in order to avoid a risking a failure, if Member States are to face alone the great environmental challenges.

According to the procedures set by co-decision, the ball is now back to the Council, with two possible solutions. The Council could approve the modification of the Parliament to the common position, but in this case it would have to approve also all the amendments proposed by the Parliament. If the Council does not approve part of the amendments or if the required majority for their approval is not reached (i.e. unanimity if the Commission expresses a negative opinion on the amendments proposed by the Parliament), the Council’s president will have to convene within six weeks the conciliation committee.
The committee includes 15 representatives of the Council and 15 of the Parliament. The object of the conciliation procedure is the Council common position as modified by the Parliament (see annex). The aim of the procedure is to arrive at a compromise which can obtain the majority of both the Council and the Parliament. If the conciliation committee will approve a common project, the Parliament and the Council will have six weeks to adopt the regulation in third reading (comunitambiente.it).