During a visit to Poland, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced exceptional measures on Thursday 19 September aimed at making the use of European cohesion funds less rigid in order to help Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which have been affected by storm Boris.
“Exceptional circumstances call for exceptional measures”, Mrs von der Leyen told the press, in the presence of the Prime Ministers of the four aforementioned countries. She indicated that the Commission would facilitate the mobilisation of up to “€10 billion” initially from EU cohesion funds to pre-finance work to repair and rebuild infrastructure damaged by the floods. The use of the funds will be “very flexible” and will “not require co-financing”, she said, assuring that Europe was standing by the hard-hit countries.
Ms von der Leyen also pointed out that Member States can also request satellite images to assess the extent of the damage, and can call on the Civil Protection Mechanism and the ‘EU Solidarity Fund’. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)