The European Parliament’s Regional Development Committee (REGI) adopted an opinion on the REPowerEU initiative on Thursday 6 October, with 29 votes in favour, 1 against and 10 abstentions. Although the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Budgets (BUDG) are jointly responsible for the dossier, REGI is responsible for the part of the text pertaining to Cohesion policy.
The opinion approved by REGI provides for authorities to apply for an additional 7.5% of their initial allocation under the 2021–2027 Cohesion Fund in order that it can be used to help meet a proportion of the REPowerEU targets. This would exclude, for example, the financing of non-fossil hydrogen, facilities for the transport of fossil fuels and the improvement of energy infrastructure and energy facilities for the supply of oil and gas. This mechanism would offer the same flexibility as REPowerEU with 100% EU co-financing.
Member States would still be able to transfer 5% of Cohesion policy to Next Generation EU, but the 7.5% would remain under the umbrella of Cohesion policy.
Furthermore, while the European Commission is assessing ways to mobilise the remaining resources under the Cohesion policy for the 2014–2020 period (see EUROPE 13037/31), the REGI opinion proposes to transfer “the available resources for the 2014–2020 programming period for the ‘Investment for Growth and Employment’ objective [...] between the ERDF, the ESF and the Cohesion Fund” at the request of a Member State. The idea is to respond to the energy crisis while providing regions with the means to directly combat fuel poverty in households and to assist SMEs.
The adopted opinion will be available at the following link: https://aeur.eu/f/3hu (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)