The Commission believes the new measures will have a twin effect, not only in making it easier to apply for, access and manage EU funding for projects, but also in tackling Europe's moribund labour market.
Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn argued that in the current crisis, EU member states and regions are finding it difficult to provide the additional funding required to "match" European investments, meaning that companies and projects continue to have cash-flow problems.
In response, the Commission has taken a number of significant steps, most obviously in fast-tracking funds for certain struggling countries. Advances totalling €775 million have been made to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary and Romania – countries which received a loan under the IMF's balance of payments scheme, or saw GDP decrease by more than 10% during the crisis.
Member states get 'grace period'
Countries that have not used all the regional funds available to them within the allocated period have also been given a grace period to speed up their absorption of EU money. Indeed, a number of member states have not been fast enough to take up funds, a point noted by Hahn earlier this year.
Under current EU rules, a two-year rule applies, i.e. if funding allocated in 2007 was not spent by a given country by the end of 2009, it would automatically be returned to the EU budget.
Under the new relaxed rules, countries have been given a delayed deadline, a measure which the Commission believes will avoid total losses of around €220 million for slow-coach countries: €125 million for Spain, €56 million for Italy, €9 million for the UK, €6 million for Germany, €4 million for the Netherlands and €20 million for cooperation projects between several countries.
Other speed-up measures include a new ceiling for major projects which require Commission approval. In other words, only big projects will require a Commission sign-off before getting the green light. This is intended to allow smaller-scale environmental projects to be approved by member states alone, which will help accelerate the start-up of relevant regional initiatives.
Lastly, major projects can henceforth be funded by taking money from a number of regional fund coffers. The EU executive cites the example of a major motorway section which is being built across different regions - such a project can now be co-financed by several regional funding programmes. Under previous rules, this was not possible.
