The EU Own Resources Decision in Finland
Written by Päivi Leino-Sandberg and featured in Verfassungsblog, 29 April 2021
On 27 April 2021, the Constitutional Law Committee (CLC) of the Finnish Parliament adopted its much-awaited opinion on the EU’s Own Resources Decision (ORD). It established that its approval requires a qualified majority and thus a significant bulk of votes from the opposition, which has been highly critical of the package.
In the spring and summer 2020, I wrote a series of blogs (here, here and here) on the handling of the EU measures relating to COVID-19 crisis in the Finnish Constitutional Law Committee. My series ended with a true cliffhanger. In June 202O, in a unanimous statement, the CLC concluded that the government may not accept or promote the proposed Union borrowing and the liability stemming for Member States from EU grants. Unless significant changes would take place, the ORD package might require a two-thirds majority in the Parliament.
However, the Grand Committee, charged with EU affairs and dominated by government parties, organized its own hearing of selected constitutional law experts, and then decided to set aside the position of the CLC. It was known that the dispute would culminate in the ratification of the ORD – a process in which the Grand Committee has no role.