EUROPE: The European Parliament is preparing to challenge an EU decision to award funding worth €60 million to Northern Ireland and the Border counties.
Its legal affairs committee recommended yesterday that it lodge an appeal with the European Court of Justice because it was shut out of a decision to award the funds to the International Fund for Ireland (IFI).
The first tranche of cash for the IFI has already been sanctioned from the EU budget. However, EU officials predicted a successful court challenge could cause complications for the programme, which is scheduled to run between 2007 and 2010.
Under the EU's peace funds programme cash is given to the IFI to disburse between projects that promote reconciliation in communities in Northern Ireland and the Border countries. Since 1989 EU contributions towards the IFI, and a separate programme called Peace I and Peace II, have amounted to €1.2 billion.
The committee recommendation, which is almost always followed by the parliament president, cites the failure of the council of ministers to take the funding decision under a procedure known as co-decision.
This would have given MEPs joint legal authority with member states to bring forward the legislation. Instead, the council gave the parliament only a consultative role over the funds.
Fine Gael MEP Jim Higgins, who was author of a report on the funds for the parliament, said this year's amount was not going to be affected, and as long as there was an early court decision future tranches of funds should not be affected either.
He defended the parliament's decision to lodge a court challenge, arguing that MEPs should have co-decision powers over this funding.
All member states at the Council of Ministers, including Ireland, unanimously refused to accept his report proposing that the funding programme be authorised under the co-decision procedure.
A Government spokesman said last night it was satisfied that funding for the programme would come on stream as planned. Fianna Fáil MEP Brian Crowley, a member of the legal affairs committee, also said a court challenge would not affect the timeframe or funding commitments. "This court case revolves around how much power should the European Parliament have over budgetary matters," he said.
The IFI was set up as an independent international organisation by the British and Irish governments in 1986. It aims to promote economic and social advancement and encourage contact, dialogue and reconciliation between nationalists and unionists throughout Ireland.