On the sidelines of the 9th Summit of Regions and Cities in Marseille on Thursday 3 February, the European Commissioner for Cohesion Policy and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, said she would present several legislative and non-legislative proposals to the College of Commissioners next week to help the EU’s local and regional authorities cope with the massive influx of refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Although not covered in the report, the current security tensions are affecting us all, but frontline states and regions will be particularly impacted”, Ms Ferreira said during her speech to the Summit, stressing the need to avoid widening territorial disparities.
“This is why the Commission will present new proposals to extend the 100% co-financing introduced in CRII for an additional year and will adapt the cohesion rules to allow Member States to support the incoming Ukrainian refugees. This is an economic necessity and a moral imperative”.
Responding to EUROPE, the Commissioner elaborated on the proposals she announced at the end of the informal ‘Cohesion’ meeting (see EUROPE 12901/16). She explained that her services were working on the REACT-EU initiative to allow the redirection of unused funds to the financing of welcoming refugees.
Furthermore, she confirmed her announcements made before the European Parliament Committee on Regional Development (REGI) on extending the 100% co-financing outlined in the CRII+ Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative Plus until 30 June 2022 (see EUROPE 12888/22). Finally, she announced a third proposal, that of re-using unused funds from the Cohesion Policy in the period 2014-2020.
Ms Ferreira said that the REACT-EU proposal should not require amendments, unlike the proposals regarding the CRII initiative and the re-use of unused funds from the 2014-2020 Cohesion Policy.
Speaking to the press, the Commissioner was cautious and made it clear that these proposals are being discussed and have not yet been adopted. “We have to go to the College and see if there is College approval”, she warned on Wednesday 9 March. If given the green light, the European Parliament and the EU Council will start negotiations on the last two proposals.
The idea would be to replicate the achievements of the CRII and CRII+ initiatives. At the height of the pandemic, the co-legislators adopted these two pieces of legislation under the urgency procedure, allowing for particularly rapid and effective action under the Cohesion Policy (see EUROPE 12469/5).
The extension of the 100% co-financing has been delayed due to difficult discussions with the Commission’s Budget Directorate-General. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)