On Thursday 24 May, the European Commission announced that it has selected five regional and national authorities from five member states in southern and eastern Europe (Greece, Poland, Spain, Croatia and Bulgaria) to participate in a pilot action to improve governance and administrative capacity.
The selected programmes will benefit from the aid of experts from the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They will focus on building the right organisational structures and developing the right skills for staff. The experts will also help the authorities coordinate more smoothly with the other players involved in the roll-out of Cohesion Policy programmes. The end objective is to significantly improve the management of programmes financed by the European Union in the next budget cycle.
The first phase of the pilot, summer 2018 - March 2019, will be dedicated to establishing a roadmap for administrative capacity-building to improve organisational set-up and transparency; human resources; internal procedures, tools and IT systems; and good governance. The programme authorities will implement the roadmap during the second phase of the pilot, as of 2019.
The European Fund for Regional Development (EFRD) will provide €900,000 for the first phase of the pilot action. The budget for the second phase will be decided later, explains the Commission.
This project is one of a series of initiatives launched by the Commission to help regions that are lagging behind (see EUROPE 11799). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)