MEPs from 5 countries join forces to reject calls for BAR changes

A group of MEPs from five countries have jointly called on one of the European Parliament’s main political groups to reject a French proposal to change the allocation of funds under the EU’s Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR).

Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly is part of a group of delegates in the European People’s Party (EPP) – of which Fine Gael is a member party – that is calling on the EU to implement the BAR.

The BAR is aimed at providing funding for member states and economic sectors most negatively impacted by Brexit. Of the €5 billion available, Ireland is currently in line to receive €1.05 billion.

Delegates to the EPP from Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg and Belgium want that BAR adopted “without delay, in order to help businesses and communities cope with increased costs of trade and lost income since the UK left the single market”.

Those MEPs also called on the EPP to reject a proposal from France to alter the calculation method for allocating funding, which could see Ireland’s share reduced.

“The BAR has been developed in the interests of protecting those countries most impacted by Brexit and rightly so. This is how it should stay and I am confident that the EPP will support the BAR in its current form”, Kelly said.

He argued that the French proposal would “delay the arrival of these funds even further, and only to the benefit of the big countries”.

In a letter to the EPP chairperson Manfred Weber, the heads of the delegations from the five countries involved explained that the calculations for the national allocation of funds are based on the expected impact of the withdrawal of the UK on each member states’ economy.

“In our view, the methodology proposed by the commission is appropriate because it allocates the biggest amounts to those member states that are likely to be most affected,” the letter argues.