The delays caused by managing the Covid-19 pandemic and the setting up of emergency instruments (CRII and CRII+, REACT-EU, and the Recovery and Resilience Plan) are clearly being felt, according to a first progress report on the programming presented by the European Commission on Tuesday 7 December.
Thus, only six partnership agreements have been submitted to the European Commission. These are those of Greece (the only one adopted so far), Austria, Germany, Finland, Lithuania and Sweden. These Member States submitted 39 cohesion programmes, i.e. 10% of the total expected, including 6 for the European Social Fund Plus. All programmes are expected to be adopted in 2022. With the exception of one, all programmes submitted foresee a reprogramming of the 2021 funds.
These delays are much more pronounced than in the previous cycle, which is a cause for concern for MEPs and regions. However, the European Commission is trying to put the consequences of this delay into perspective, pointing out that projects will be eligible from 1 January 2021. A delay could also be beneficial for the quality of the programming to take into account the new climate objectives linked to the ‘Fit for 55’ package for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (see EUROPE 12833/10).
To consult the European Commission’s state of play: https://bit.ly/3DvyJMx (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)