More than €322 billion, or 92% of the total Cohesion Policy envelope for the period 2014–2020, has been allocated to projects and actioned, according to a report published by the European Commission on Monday 3 August.
However, the absorption rate, although continuing to rise, remains unsatisfactory: only 34% of the overall envelope has been paid out to Member States: “It remains at a lower level than expected and compared to the previous programming period” stated the authors of the report.
In terms of financial management and control, the overall residual error rate remains low. This rate is 2.7% and will potentially increase to an estimated maximum risk (worst-case scenario) of 3.8% for the Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund.
Irregularities are principally related to public procurement (50%), ineligible expenditure and projects (13%), and inadequate audits (13%). In the end, the estimated average closure error rate for 2019 expenditure in respect of all management modes (directly and indirectly) was about 1.1%.
In terms of performance programmes, 14% of the 293 Cohesion Policy programmes have been identified by the European Commission as being in difficulty and therefore requiring close monitoring or even corrective measures.
Overall, the institution noted that performance priorities accounted for 79% of the total performance reserve. The review resulted in the final release of €15.9 billion of the €20.2 billion performance reserve, to be invested in high-performing priority areas.
More information can be found at: https://bit.ly/31hEBrF (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)