MEPs on Committee on Regional Development (REGI) are set to vote on their position on the REACT-EU Regulation on Monday 7 September, on which the rapporteurs are Andrey Novakov (EPP, Bulgaria) and Constanze Krehl (S&D, Germany).
Among the two major changes introduced by parliamentarians are their desire to restrict how additional funds are spent and to stagger spending over time.
Thus, among the provisional compromise amendments dated 4 September, obtained by EUROPE, MEPs are introducing a possibility of derogation allowing the new operational programmes to cover additional costs through 31 December 2024 on the basis of updated statistics of national and regional situations in order to better account for the socio-economic impact of the pandemic.
The aim is to give more room for manoeuvre to the regions, some of which have very limited resources, in order to absorb the funds for the 2014-2020 budget cycle, to start programming the new 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework, the programming of the Just Transition Fund and, henceforth, REACT-EU.
In addition, the MEPs sought to provide a better framework for the additional expenditure provided for in REACT-EU, in order to better reflect the consequences of the pandemic and European priorities, considering that the Commission proposal (see EUROPE 12495/3) leaves too much freedom to the Member States.
For example, for the European Regional Development Fund, MEPs want to target additional spending on health and social infrastructure by adding cross-border services, explicitly highlighting facilities for the elderly or social economy enterprises. Moreover, they specify that the additional funds must also benefit border regions, least developed regions, island and mountain regions, sparsely populated regions and the outermost regions.
The same goes for the European Social Fund plus (ESF+): MEPs want to ensure that additional funding is targeted primarily at maintaining wages and financing short-time working schemes, focusing on the most vulnerable groups of people (including the long-term unemployed), but also artists.
The co-rapporteurs want to move as quickly as possible on this matter. The vote in committee will therefore take place next Monday, with the hope of a plenary vote the following week.
To see the draft compromise amendments: https://bit.ly/3lJESx0 (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)