European rearmament meets unexpected obstacle: Roberta Metsola

The EU Commission’s plan to rearm Europe involves raising €150 billion to loan to member states’ in their race for better defence capabilities. However, their main obstacle could come from within the EU itself: The European Parliament and its head, Roberta Metsola. 

The European Parliament has warned the Commission it could take it to Court over its plan to bypass elected lawmakers to create this €150 billion loan programme called SAFE. 

The Commission has invoked Article 122 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) to set up SAFE, which allows member states to directly approve a Commission proposal “if severe difficulties arise in the supply of certain products” or if a member state is “seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control”.

However, Roberta Metsola issued her warning in a letter to Commission head Ursula von der Leyen urging to change the legal basis to set up the programme.

In her letter, Dr Metsola stresses that the Parliament’s legal affairs committee (JURI) “unanimously decided” at a meeting last month that Article 122 “is not the appropriate legal basis for the proposal regulation”.

“The European Parliament is not questioning the merits of this proposal for a regulation,” she said, but is instead “deeply concerned” that its adoption without a proper legal basis would be “putting at risk democratic legitimacy by undermining Parliament’s legislative and scrutiny functions”.

A Commission spokesperson however doubled down on the plan, saying the Commission “will always be available to explain why Article 122 TFEU has been chosen as the appropriate legal basis”.

“Europe faces an unprecedented security threat,” a spokesperson explained. “As stated by President von der Leyen in her Political Guidelines, Article 122 will only be used in exceptional circumstances, as the ones we are currently living in.”

Article 122 was previously also used by the Commission to react swiftly to the COVID-19 pandemic and to speed up the permits for renewable energy during the height of the energy crisis.

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