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The Extraordinary European Council of 22-23 November 2012 has been adjourned without an agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2014-2020. Progress has however been registered in a number of areas, some of which are of importance to Malta. Another European Council meeting will be called in the coming weeks to continue negotiations.

Following a day of bilateral meetings between the European Council President who was accompanied by the European Commission President and each EU head of government, late last night EC President Van Rompuy presented his proposals to the European Council.

Since the European Council was unable to reach agreement on these proposals, none of the proposals made by EC President Van Rompuy can be considered as having been approved. In negotiations such as these the European Union follows the procedure that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’.

As far as Malta is concerned, however, this European Council can be considered to have registered major progress since EC President Van Rompuy proposed a solution to two of Malta’s demands during these negotiations. The negotiations on the Multi-Annual Financial Framework started in June 2011 with the adoption by the European Commission of its formal proposal for the 7-year financing period starting on 1 January 2014.

In the proposals published last night EC President Van Rompuy proposed a top-up for Malta of €200 million in Cohesion Policy funding over the seven year period, 2014-2020. This proposed top-up included an amount of approximately €122 million designed to answer Malta’s request to continue to be treated as a Less Developed Region (Objective 1 region) in terms of Cohesion Policy funding over the next 7-year financing period.

The proposed €200 million top-up was also designed to address another request made by Malta for its island status to be recognised in line with the Lisbon Treaty which came into force in 2009; it included an amount of approximately €78 million for this purpose.

In his reactions, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi recognised this offer as a major positive step in terms of two of Malta’s key requests but believes that there still needs to be further discussion on the proposals made by EC President Van Rompuy. Malta would have wished this European Council to have ended with a successful closure of negotiations on the Multi-annual Financial Framework (2014-2020) since a potential convergence of views was apparent. Unfortunately, this was not to be.