The Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, announced the extension of the provision in the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII and CRII+) to increase EU funding to 100% until 30 June 2022, during a debate, on Thursday 10 February, on the 8th Cohesion Report with the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI).
“A lot of you, and lot of Member States were asking for additional flexibility in the management of 2014-2020 multiannual programmes. (...) In fact, there is good news. In the Commission, after a lot of dialogue, a lot of discussions, we are ready to propose that we extend until June 2022 the flexibility of 100% financing”, announced the Commissioner to the MEPs.
However, she said that “the flexibility to move across funds and across regions is not feasible anymore due to budgetary constraints and delays”. The proposal was almost ready, she said, urging the European Parliament to move quickly to adopt it.
The announcement was welcomed by the REGI Committee Chair, Younous Omarjee (The Left, France), who assured MEPs of their commitment to analyse the proposal as soon as possible. The Committee of the Regions President, Apostolos Tzitzikostas (EPP, Greece,) also welcomed the news.
“The extension of the flexible rules is essential to deliver the investments supported by the 2014-2020 cohesion policy on time”, he stressed on his Twitter account, adding that this was a request from the Committee of the Regions dating back to last July.
This is somewhat unexpected news: only a few months ago, the Commissioner had sent negative signals about a possible extension (see EUROPE 12814/10).
Regulation 2020/558, adopted as a matter of urgency at the start of the pandemic in 2020, provided in its provisions for a cofinancing rate of 100% to be applied for the accounting period from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021. The legislative text indicated that, on the basis of an evaluation of the application of this exceptional cofinancing rate, the Commission could propose an extension of this measure.
In general, the Commissioner reiterated the key messages of the 8th Report, particularly with regard to the stagnation of middle-income and transitional regions (see EUROPE 12887/2). MEPs also expressed concern about the impact of the emergency measures and the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan on the programming of cohesion policy. This delay could jeopardise the future of post-2027 Cohesion Policy and many Member States could be tempted to “re-nationalise” this policy, warned Younous Omarjee.
The European Commission has formally received thirteen partnership agreements (Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, Lithuania, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Netherlands, Hungary, Cyprus and Italy). Only the Greek partnership agreement has been adopted so far. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)