Last week, the Member States of the European Union decided, with some discretion, on their partial position (budgetary issues still to be decided) on the regulation establishing the future European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) for 2021-2027 (see EUROPE 12230/24).
According to several European sources, the amendments made by the EU Council do not significantly change the spirit of the European Commission's proposal (see EUROPE 12022/20), unlike the European Parliament, which had upset the regulation (see EUROPE 12229/9).
The EU Council has removed the link between the European Social Fund plus (ESF+) (Art. 11) and ’dedicated priorities’. For Member States, this was a way of simplifying the task for managing authorities, so that they did not have to isolate programmes specifically to respond to ’country-specific recommendations’. In the view of delegations, country specific recommendations are covered by all priorities.
Health governance has also been modified. The Commission had proposed to bring all the ‘committee procedures’ together under a single committee for the European Union's Employment and Social Innovation Programme (EaSI) and for health. In the end, the Member States preferred to keep two separate commissions in order to have a say in the programming.
In addition, Member States have significantly revised and simplified the specific objectives (Article 4) which, in the opinion of several delegations, were too complex, too precise and, therefore, too rigid and cumbersome to carry administratively.
A debate was held on the question of the eligibility (art. 14) of social infrastructure in relation to the country-specific recommendations requested by several delegations from Central and Eastern Europe and some Baltic countries. The reason is that because of the new thematic concentrations of the future European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), there will be too little funding left for these infrastructures. In the end, the net contributors were right, and the addition of a time envisaged by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU, was not retained.
Several delegations also asked to maintain technical assistance to strengthen 'capacity building’, but again this was not retained. In particular, the European Commission reportedly indicated that there are other tools available to support structural reforms.
Interinstitutional negotiations will start with the next European Parliament. These are likely to resume next September, we are told. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)