Brussels, 30/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - Red tape for the structural funds may be slashed by 20% in 2014, explains DG Régio. The changes are set out in draft legislation to reform the EU's cohesion policy for 2014-2020, which could cut the administrative burden by 20% for the cohesion fund and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) compared with the current set-up. The Commission's planned simplifications focus on sending documents online, harmonised rules and simplified eligibility criteria.
On Thursday 26 July 2012, the European Commission's regional policy department, the Directorate General for Regional Policy (DG Regio) published an impact assessment examining changes to the rules governing administrative costs and formalities for management of the EU structural funds (the cohesion fund and the ERDF). The study shows that two percent of EU funding under the current cohesion policy programming period (2007-2013) go to financing the running of the ERDF and the cohesion policy, but if the changes unveiled by the Commission are brought in, red tape could be slashed by nearly 20%, saving beneficiaries both time and money. The workload of national and regional authorities caused by EU structural fund procedures could be cut by 13%. Moreover, the Commission says that administrative costs could be cut by some seven percent.
Discussing this 20% cut in red tape, the impact assessment says that 11% of it would come from e-cohesion, in other words sending documents online rather than through the post. The remaining 9% would come from other changes recommended by the Commission, such as changes to the eligibility rules. The greater benefits would be for environmental protection, risk prevention, research, innovation, entrepreneurship and the information society. Local authorities would be able to make savings on the current set-up by cutting the administrative burden (25%), monitoring of small and medium-sized enterprises (19%) and monitoring of non-governmental organisations (11%).
The Commission says that a fifth of red tape could be abolished in 2014 by making changes at EU level, and this could be expanded further by similar moves at national and regional level.
The impact assessment points out that some of the impact of the new EU rules would result in a duplication of administration for the ERDF and the cohesion fund by the introduction of an annual management statement, annual accounts and more frequent ends to programmes, but the research suggests this would be marginal. (MD/transl.fl)