The EU’s rapid action via the CARE (Cohesion Action for Refugees in Europe) programme has helped Member States to take charge of refugees from Ukraine, but the concrete impact on the ground remains uncertain, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) concluded on Wednesday 12 February in a new report on the EU’s CARE mechanism.
Approved in March 2022 (see EUROPE 12906/6, 12912/8), the CARE initiative was used to release funds under the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to help local and regional authorities deal with the wave of refugees caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
These included extending the 100% cofinancing rates provided for under the CRII and CRII+ (Coronavirus Response Investment Initiatives) programmes, and introducing new flexibilities to allow Member States to use the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF).
More than 4 million refugees from Ukraine currently benefit from temporary protection in the EU.
“CARE did not provide any additional funding, but it did allow Member States to reallocate certain remaining European cohesion policy funds quickly and flexibly”, notes the ECA.
More specifically, the EU has adapted the rules of its cohesion policy by adopting three ‘CARE’ regulations. “This action left Member States free to quickly redirect unspent funds from the 2014-2020 cohesion programmes, including the REACT-EU pandemic response initiative, to refugee aid”, explains the Court.
“Although the amount of funding available is relatively modest compared to the overall aid provided to refugees, the EU’s measures have proved useful in responding to the many challenges resulting from the massive influx of refugees from Ukraine”.
The process of reprogramming European funds “has been complicated by the rapidly increasing scale of refugee flows, particularly in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. However, this has not prevented support from being based on an analysis of the refugees’ needs. The reallocated European funds have also been used to supplement measures taken as part of the national or regional response to the crisis”.
Thanks to efficient selection procedures, the projects could be implemented rapidly, from spring 2022. This has made it possible to co-fund activities covering different types and stages of support, from initial reception and immediate assistance to long-term integration support.
The Court also said that the Commission “provided timely and appropriate guidance” on the implementation of CARE.
Despite this, there are still shortcomings “in the monitoring of the funds allocated, as the European Commission is unable to determine the total amount of funding used (...). Nor does it have specific data on the number of aid programmes for refugees from Ukraine or common evaluation indicators. It is therefore impossible to measure the effectiveness of CARE”.
The Court covered the 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 programming periods. The audit covered the period from 24 February 2022 to the end of 2023. The Commission’s reaction. The European Commission “welcomes the ECA Special Report on the Cohesion’s Action for Refugees in Europe (CARE) and its main conclusion on the positive impact of the support delivered by the EU to persons displaced by Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine”, according to a press release. The CARE packages provided liquidity of about €13.7 billion to Member States to help them address the challenges of integrating people fleeing Ukraine as well as of the implementation of Cohesion Policy supported projects. In addition, 19 countries mobilised over €1.4 billion for concrete measures of support for those in need in areas such as accommodation, healthcare, employment orientation and medical, social and psychological support. “Additional monitoring arrangements with more CARE-specific data were duly considered”, says the Commission, but “the monitoring systems in place were deemed sufficient as they had already ensured an adequate level of information on the achievements of the programmes helping displaced people and it was important to avoid additional administrative burden on Member States’ administrations in a crisis situation”.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/fgv (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)