Local and regional authorities “have not been sufficiently involved, or have not been involved at all, in the entire Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) implementation process”, regrets the Commission for Economic Policy (ECON) of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), in a draft opinion adopted unanimously on Thursday 4 July.
The RRF “does not respect multilevel governance or the partnership principle, both of which apply to cohesion policy, thereby undermining the very principle of economic, social and territorial cohesion enshrined in the Treaties”, the members of this committee protest.
The draft opinion by Christophe Rouillon (PES, French) on the mid-term review of the post-Covid-19 European Recovery Plan will be adopted by the CoR plenary session in October.
Local and regional managers point out that at present, only about a third of RRF funds are being used. The CoR’s ECON Commission “strongly doubts, therefore, the capacity of the Commission, the Member States and local and regional authorities to collectively ensure the implementation of all the measures provided for in the NRRPs, and thus the disbursement of all funds before the instrument is scheduled to expire at the end of 2026”. This commission therefore suggests postponing the spending deadline for RRF funds and focusing more on social investments, in areas such as housing or health.
Link to the draft opinion: https://aeur.eu/f/cyu (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)