The ‘Pillar 1’ of the post-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) will be called the ‘European Economic, Territorial, Social, Rural and Maritime Sustainable Prosperity and Security Fund’, according to a draft proposal published by Agence Europe on Monday 14 July.
This Fund, whose proposal is expected on Wednesday 16 July, will bring together European funds with pre-allocated envelopes at national level. It will be implemented through 27 regional and national plans, the ‘EU Facility’ (which aims to bring flexibility to the EU budget) and the Interreg Plan, which will share the financial envelope.
By moving “from close to 540 programmes to 27 National and Regional Partnership Plans”, one of the first objectives is to simplify the EU’s long-term budget, according to the Commission.
The 27 plans will cover the Common Agricultural Policy, the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund, the European Social Fund, the Common Fisheries Policy, EU support for asylum, migration and integration, European border management and visa policy, and EU support for internal security.
The Fund will aim to: - reduce regional imbalances within the EU and the backwardness of the least favoured regions; - “support quality employment, education and skills, and social inclusion”; - contribute to a “socially fair transition towards climate neutrality”, and; - “protect democracy in Europe and European values”.
Flexibility. With this new structure, the European Commission intends to offer sufficient flexibility in the distribution of funds, which will be done “in phases” and with “better responsiveness to unpredicted crises”.
The funds will in fact be allocated progressively, “throughout the programming period”, to the Member States, whose partnership plan with the Commission can be revised more easily, depending on the objectives set, the milestones achieved and the political priorities.
The European Commission is planning to create an “EU Facility” with a “budget cushion” to be applied to the EU’s “emerging challenges and priorities”.
The EU institution believes that “25% of the national envelope of each Member State should constitute the flexibility amount”, known as the “crisis and mid-term review measure”. It is specified that the amount of this “budgetary cushion” can be released progressively (one fifth until the mid-term review, three fifths reserved for the review, etc.).
Performance. In keeping with its ambition to make the EU budget conditional on the achievement of reforms, the Commission warns that “payments will be conditional upon the fulfilment of pre-agreed objectives, which is expected to deliver funds and results more efficiently and speedily”.
As such, the Commission reserves the right (Article 65 of the said regulation) to suspend payments in cases where “one or more milestone or target or output included in a payment application has not been fulfilled or a milestone or a target, for which a payment has been disbursed, has been reversed”.
Governance. The National and Regional Partnership Plans, as well as the Interreg Plan, will be implemented under “shared management”, while the ‘EU Facility’ may be managed directly, shared or indirectly by the European Commission.
Each Member State will be responsible for submitting its National and Regional Partnership Plan. In the event of a “positive assessment”, the Commission will propose a EU Council implementing decision.
Member States will have to designate “one or more managing authorities”, “one or more paying agencies” and “one or more audit authorities”. If more than one managing authority is designated, a coordinating authority must be created. In addition, the Commission expects a balanced representation of the following partners: regional and local public authorities, economic and social partners, bodies representing civil society, research organisations and universities.
Transparency. Performance monitoring and transparency were among the pitfalls identified by the European Court of Auditors for the Recovery and Resilience Facility (see EUROPE 13634/23, 13278/26), the budgetary instrument that inspired the operation of the next MFF, divided into national plans based on the principle of ‘money for reform’.
To ensure transparency, the Commission will ask Member States to create a website “covering the Plan’s objectives, activities, available funding opportunities and achievements”.
See the draft Fund: https://aeur.eu/f/hvh (Original version in French by Florent Servia)