The Committee of the Regions wishes for the link between the Just Transition Fund and the other structural funds to be eased, but also wants greater involvement of regions and cities, in an opinion delivered by Vojko Obersnel (PES, Hungary) and adopted at the plenary session in Brussels by a large majority (218 votes in favour, one against, five abstentions) on Thursday 2 July.
For the regions, the Member States must have more flexibility. The transfer of funds between funds and regions should be voluntary, they said. They also call for local and regional actors to be closely involved in the preparation of the territorial plans for just transition, given that the Fund will be partly based on the ERDF and ESF+.
The regions insist that the Fund should not finance the opening of coal mines (the rapporteur’s draft went even further by banning all mines).
It considers that the Aid Platform (see EUROPE 12515/22) should be described precisely in the Regulation. It also calls for the Fund to offer more attractive co-financing rates than cohesion policy funds, so that its use is sufficiently attractive to justify additional efforts.
Interestingly, the Committee introduces the polluter pays principle: pollution control must be carried out by the party that caused the pollution.
Concerning the budget, the regions ask the European Commission to integrate the new Fund into Heading 2 ‘Cohesion and values’ of the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework, instead of Heading 3 (Natural resources and environment).
The Committee considers it “regrettable” that the Fund is deployed at NUTS-3 level (the smallest regional level, according to the European nomenclature) rather than NUTS-2, which is the level at which the main cohesion policy programmes are implemented. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)