Around €13.5 billion of Cohesion policy funds have been mobilised to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, according to provisional results published on Monday 12 October looking at the use of Cohesion Funds within the framework of investment initiatives responding to the pandemic (CRII and CRII+).
This database has been built up on the basis of specific voluntary indicators as developed by the European Commission (e.g. number of pieces of medical equipment purchased, number of SMEs given assistance, number of employees who have not lost their jobs within 6 months after the start of the crisis). It would appear that it will initially be updated on a monthly basis and then on a daily basis.
A total of €4.1 billion was reallocated to health care (of which €1.5 billion is for Spain alone), with €8.4 billion being used to help SMEs (Italy was the first Member State to make use of this option) and €1.4 billion to help workers, students and the most vulnerable categories of people (Slovakia particularly made use of this option).
Some €7.6 billion of non-recovered pre-financing by Member States might be redeployed. In addition, 86 cohesion programmes (out of more than approximately 390) have been modified to allow for 100% co-financing. Some €3.5 billion has been transferred between funds and programmes, and €3.4 billion has been transferred between categories of regions. So far, 23 Member States have made use of the CRII provisions. This figure could increase significantly further, with Member States having until the end of the year to amend their programmes. “We're halfway there”, said one source.
We have been told that Bulgaria is one of the countries that has done the most in terms of reprogramming, since the Bulgarian Government had done so even before the European Commission’s new measures were announced.
For more detailed data: https://bit.ly/33QIC96 (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)