The Committee on Budgets of the European Parliament voted on Monday on the report on the Fair Transition Fund, whose alternative rapporteur from the Renew Europe group was the MEP Nicolae Ștefănuță (USR-PLUS), according to CaleaEuropeană.ro.

The aim of this fund is to help the regions most affected by the transition to climate neutrality and to avoid increasing inequality between European regions in the process.

“As a rapporteur for Renew Europe, we have proposed to significantly increase the budget of the Just Transition Fund. Initially, the Commission’s proposal for the budget of this fund of 10 billion euro from the Multiannual Financial Framework and 30 billion from the Next Generation EU. In the Committee on Budgets, I have convinced my colleagues to increase the share of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) from 10 to 25 billion, reaching a total budget of 55 billion. The extra amount from the MFF is important, because the rules are clearer at the moment, and the period in which they are available is longer than the time in which the money from the Next Generation EU is available, which must be used by 2024,” said MEP Nicolae Ștefănuță.

“In addition to the original proposal, we have managed to make the Just Transition Fund independent and in addition to other EU funds. I am glad that, together with the rapporteur Siegfried Mureșan, I have convinced my colleagues in the Committee on Budgets that it is necessary to increase the budget for the regions of Europe affected by the transition to climate neutrality. The final report will be voted on in the Committee on Regional Development in the European Parliament. Once the report has been voted on, a period of negotiations with the Council of the Union will begin. The transition to climate neutrality is necessary and it can be made by Romania only with European support guaranteed and available for a sufficient period of time. The European Union is involved in this process and what we can do, as Romania’s representatives in Brussels, is to make sure that there is enough money for that, and I think that through this report we have succeeded, and that we leave the transition paths intact for realistic solutions,” he added.