On Thursday 18 September, the EU Council adopted the regulation on the mid-term review of cohesion policy, which is designed to respond to new challenges, after receiving the European Parliament’s green light (see EUROPE 13706/16, 13682/10).
The reform gives Member States and regions the opportunity to redirect funds towards new objectives (competitiveness, defence, housing, water resilience and energy transition).
European Commission Executive Vice-President Raffaele Fitto described it as an “important step in modernising cohesion policy to continuously respond to today’s challenges”.
Member States and regions investing in the new priorities will benefit from higher pre-financing rates (up to 20%). Programmes that reallocate at least 10% of their budget to these priorities will benefit from even higher pre-financing rates. Reallocated funds will benefit from EU cofinancing rates that are 10 percentage points higher than the standard rates, explains the Commission.
The regulation will be published in the Official Journal of the European Union in the next few days and will come into force the day after its publication.
The regulation: https://aeur.eu/f/ihi (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)