On Thursday 13 October, Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion Policy, confirmed the arrival of a European Commission proposal for new exceptional support measures. These will be targeted at families and businesses hit by the energy crisis and inflation. “[The proposal] is based on the flexibilities which are more or less similar to those that we created with CRII - i.e. for covid response during the pandemic - or the flexibilities that we created for the refugees [from Ukraine] with CARE”, the Commissioner said.
In concrete terms, a limited percentage of the unused amounts of the 2014-2020 Cohesion Funds can be mobilised to help businesses maintain their jobs, and families. This will be managed through the Regional Fund (ERDF), the Social Fund (ESF) and the Cohesion Fund. “We don’t want the policy to be redirected to emergency situations. We have discussed it thoroughly, and we’ll be controlling or limiting this to the emergency profile of the period 2014-2020”, the Commissioner said. Indeed, Elisa Ferreira had already assured that the objective was not to touch the structural funds planned for the period 2021-2027 (see EUROPE 13039/9).
The proposal is expected to reach the EU Council and the European Parliament in the coming days. Younous Omarjee (GUE/NGL, French), MEP and chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI), has already welcomed the Commissioner's announcement. In REGI’s opinion on REPowerEU, MEPs had already proposed an emergency measure for vulnerable businesses and families from the remaining resources of 2014-2020, which would remain under the umbrella of the cohesion policy (see EUROPE 13040/30, 13038/10).
Elisa Ferreira spoke at the closing session of the European Week of Regions and Cities (see EUROPE 13039/9). This was an opportunity to take stock of the debates that have been taking place this week in the presence of Younous Omarjee and Vasco Alves Cordeiro, President of the European Committee of the Regions. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)