The European Commission confirmed that on Thursday 2 April new 'CRII 2' measures will be presented in the framework of the structural and investment funds with a view to introducing additional flexibilities and strengthening the European response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Thus, Regulation 1303/2013 laying down common provisions between the Structural Funds and the Investment Funds will be amended once again in response to requests from the Member States (see EUROPE 12456/1) and also from the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12458/1).
The new measures, which still only concern the year 2020, are in the process of being finalised at the time of writing, but they should provide for: - the possibility of a co-financing rate of up to 100% (after evaluation by the European Commission) for regions affected by the pandemic; - the possibility of transfers between the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund; - the possibility of transfer between categories of regions, from the richest to the poorest regions and vice versa (after evaluation by the European Commission). Further simplifications could be considered, not least since there could be a derogation from the principle of thematic concentrations.
The College of European Commissioners has yet to adopt these new measures by written procedure and some modalities could therefore still change.
These measures will be discussed at the Eurogroup on Tuesday 7 April in an enlarged format. Mandated by the European Summit (see EUROPE 12455/1), the euro area finance ministers will also discuss other proposals such as the granting of credit lines by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a reinforced mobilisation of the EU budget as well as an instrument to help finance national short-time working programmes (see other news). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)