The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) held a policy dialogue with the European Commission and the Council of the EU on Wednesday 26 October regarding the implementation status of the Territorial Just Transition Plans. While the reasons for the delays in adopting these plans were the main focus of the meeting, everything pointed to the increasing complexity of the Cohesion Fund.
“About 1/3 of Member States have adopted their plans [...] and we are confident of achieving the adoption of the plans by the end of the year”, said Sofia Alves, speaking on behalf of the European Commission.
As someone who is involved in negotiating the plans with the Member States, according to her, the delays are linked to a combination of factors. It is a new fund, with new rules and, what is more, it is negotiated between a multitude of stakeholders. Furthermore, she noted the difficulty some Member States had in defining the social strand of the programme and in assessing the social impact of the ecological transition, “as a result of lack of strategy”. Finally, a reluctance to move away from coal as a result of the energy crisis and changes in government have, in turn, slowed the process. “There were situations where the old government had a clear strategy and the new one comes and changes the strategy”, she explained.
Insufficient resources for managing its complexity
Regional representatives lamented a lack of resources from local authorities to manage the growing complexity of the funds. “Flexibility and simplicity are key to move forward”, pleaded Emil Boc, mayor of Cluj-Napoca.
“The fragmentation of regional funds has been immense”, acknowledged Sofia Alves. “It starts with good intentions, we want to cater for a specific problem and deliver fast, but then we all have to make sense of these funds and make them work together while the resources from the EU institutions nor the local authorities have increased”. In turn, she called for simplification, including simplified eligibility criteria.
Concerns were also expressed at the meeting that delays in adoption could lead to a loss of funds. Indeed, part of the JTF envelope results from a special allocation from Next Generation EU under the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the expenditure must be committed by the end of 2023 and effectively spent by the end of 2026. Radim Sršeň, speaking on behalf of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council, also pointed out that large-scale investments are difficult to implement in such a short time. While he said he was “happy with the design of the instrument”, he called for additional resources to be mobilised, “including from the private sector”, and for better coordination between the different instruments. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)