Brussels, 24/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 24 March, the European Commission launched a platform for exchanging best practices between officials in member states. The 'PEER 2 PEER' pilot project will help improve the management of European funds.
Corina Cretu, the European commissioner for regional policy, explained during the official launch of the platform that “some member states have a lot of experience in managing these funds, whilst others that joined more recently, have only been working with these instruments for a few years”. She said that they had to pool their know-how and share their practical experience. According to the European Commission, 24,000 national civil servants are taking part in the management of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund throughout the EU.
At a practical level, the 'PEER 2 PEER' programme will be made up of missions of experts, study visits and workshops, organised according to requests made by member states. Corina Cretu explained that these events would be focusing on very practical themes, in an effort to facilitate a genuine exchange of knowledge. The exchange platform was devised on the basis of the Information Exchange instrument (TAIEX), developed by Commission Directorate-General for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations. 'PEER 2 PEER' is currently a pilot project and will be assessed in 2016.
In addition to the launch of this platform, the European Commission points out that improving the absorption capacity of European funds is a priority for Commissioner Cretu. The latter has therefore developed training for administrative staff in member states, as well as an independent group of experts in charge of identifying simplification procedures. At the end of 2014 she also set up a workgroup for eight member states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) to complete absorption of the funds for 2007-2013. (Jean Comte)