Tag: Structural and Cohesion funds

Britain will demand changes to the European Union's regional development funds in budget talks this month, including stripping wealthier nations of access to money intended to help poorer areas, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Meeting in Athens, trade union leaders from across Europe have called on EU finance ministers to show solidarity towards Greece and other EU countries facing serious financial difficulties, notably by reducing interest rates on loans from the European Central Bank (ECB).

Representatives of regions and cities are calling on the European Commission to focus EU funds on supporting new approaches to meeting social needs.

Meeting in Brussels today (1 April), regional leaders are expected to adopt a report that directly contradicts many of the European Commission's ideas for reforming the EU structural funds in the coming years. Mayor of Dunkirk Michel Delebarre spoke to EurActiv about why the Committee of the Regions cannot support some of the Commission's plans.

Regions in relatively rich countries should continue to receive money from Brussels, because this is how the European Union "shows its face," according to German MEP Markus Pieper (European People's Party), who is in charge of drafting the European Parliament's opinion on the future of EU regional policy.

Small and medium-sized towns have set up shop to increase their influence over EU policymaking and make their voices heard among the EU institutions.

The EU commissioner in charge of regional policy, Johannes Hahn, has called on regional and national governments to make sure they use up all the money that is available from the EU's structural funds by speeding up the implementation of projects on the ground.

How should the EU's cohesion policy be reformed to meet the challenges facing Europe's regions in the coming years? EurActiv Czech Republic interviewed Fabrizio Barca, one of Europe's leading experts in the field of economics and regional development.

The Bucharest-Ilfov region is using EU funds to develop its tourism infrastructure and improve its attractiveness to business travellers in the country's capital. EurActiv Romania reports. 

A major Europe-wide survey has revealed that two out of three citizens are not aware of any projects that the EU co-finances in their area. However, awareness is higher in those countries that receive the most money from Brussels.

The European Commission and EU member states have made "no contact" with the Committee of the Regions (CoR) during key debates on the future of European regional policy and the 2020 growth strategy for the coming decade – a big mistake, according to CoR member Michael Schneider.

Brussels will have to come up with stricter conditions in delivering EU funds and citizens will have to make wide - and sometimes difficult - changes to their lifestyles if the EU is serious about accelerating resource efficiency, experts said yesterday (5 October).

EU regional policy is the best way to transform the 'Europe 2020' economic goals into concrete achievements, and it will need to keep its current chunk of the EU budget to do so, according to EU Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn.

As a way to encourage local and regional bodies to seek EU funding, the West Sweden region has developed an 'advice service' which helps them access funds that match their own long-term development goals. Its designers view the model as "solid and unique" and hope to see it replicated across the EU. 

The EU's large regional policy budget should be kept at its current level, but only if the European Commission gets a bigger say on how funding is allocated and to which regions, Tallinn Mayor Edgar Savisaar told EurActiv in an interview, lamenting a lack of coherence in the distribution of structural and cohesion funds.

Local leaders must be given the freedom to create tailor-made solutions for making the 'Europe 2020' growth strategy work, but must likewise take more responsibility for this task, Lodewijk Asscher, acting Mayor of Amsterdam, told EurActiv in an interview.

The European Commission last week (24 June) gave the green light to new measures designed to simplify access to EU regional and cohesion funds, a measure the EU executive hopes will provide much-needed liquidity in tackling the economic crisis.

EU regional policy is designed to level out economic and social disparities in the 27 member states. At the halfway point of its current regional budgetary period (2007-2013), the European Commission conducted a review assessing how well each EU country is faring in its use of cohesion funds.

In a report presented earlier this week, French MEP Sophie Briard-Auconie called for a relaxation of control measures used to distribute EU regional funds in her country. EurActiv France reports.

Mercedes Bresso, the Committee of the Regions' new president, says current plans to divert EU regional funds towards realising the 'Europe 2020' strategy for growth and jobs are misguided. Instead, the EU must find new money for the strategy, she explained in an interview with EurActiv France.

The EU commissioners for innovation and regional policy, meeting in Spain this week, have called for an end to duplication and misuse of EU funding between their vast policy machines and pledged to work better together.

Dutch authorities were initially sceptical about funding the Minewater project, but with strong local support this unusual renewable energy initiative succeeded in securing  EU regional money and went on to become a blueprint for similar models elsewhere in Europe.

Poland's use of EU funding has been the most efficient of all new member states, contributing to the country's resistance to the recession, high-ranking Polish politicians and business figures claimed last week.

Removing cohesion policy from the EU's list of top priorities would be a mistake, though changes may be required to prevent it from being a mere redistributive tool, Spanish EU Presidency representatives and regional experts meeting in Spain declared yesterday (16 February).