(1)

Member States have been affected by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in an unprecedented manner. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected migration, security and border management in Member States, which in turn has aggravated the serious liquidity shortages that Member States are facing due to the sudden and significant increase in public investments needed in many sectors. That has created an exceptional situation which should be addressed with specific measures.

(2)

It is necessary to provide Member States with additional flexibility to enable them to respond to this unprecedented crisis by enhancing the possibility to make full use of the available implementation period for national programmes as referred to in Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) up until the closure of those programmes by 31 December 2023. In order to respond to such a need, the deadlines for decommitment and submission of requests for payment of the annual balance should be the same. The regulatory deadline for requests for payment of the annual balance is 15 February of the year following the relevant financial year, which the Commission can exceptionally extend to 1 March of that year, whereas the deadline initially set for decommitment was 31 December of the second year following that of the budget commitment. By aligning the deadline for decommitment to the relevant deadline for the submission of requests for payment, the Commission will be able to take the request for payment of the annual balance submitted by the Member State on 15 February or 1 March, as appropriate, into consideration for the purpose of the decommitment exercise.

(3)

In order to ensure that Member States can make full use of additional allocations granted in 2018 and 2019, the year in which the budget commitment is effected should be adjusted. Those additional allocations were included in the general budget of the European Union for the financial years 2018 and 2019 and subsequently committed to the national programmes.

(4)

In view of the urgency entailed by the exceptional circumstances caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is considered to be appropriate to provide for an exception to the eight-week period referred to in Article 4 of Protocol No 1 on the role of national Parliaments in the European Union, annexed to the Treaty on European Union (TEU), to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and to the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community.

(5)

Since the objective of this Regulation, namely to maximise the use of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund, established by Regulation (EU) No 516/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3), and the Internal Security Fund, established by Regulations (EU) No 513/2014 (4) and (EU) No 515/2014 (5) of the European Parliament and of the Council, in addressing the direct and indirect effects stemming from the unprecedented public health crisis in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 TEU. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.

(6)

Regulation (EU) No 514/2014 should therefore be amended accordingly.

(7)

In order to provide Member States with legal certainty as regards the decommitment deadline, this Regulation should enter into force as a matter of urgency on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,