Regions & Cities 2018: A deep dive into the EU regional funds

framework, which will weaken cohesion policy, but
also in terms of how funds are spent," he said.
Poland currently has 16 regional operation
programmes - yet 15 member states have no
regional programmes at all.
Regions still manage a large part of the EU money
that is poured into some 540 programmes. This
accounts for one third of the total allocation.
Of that, more than two-thirds of regional
programmes are concentrated in Germany, Spain,
France and Italy. These four EU states alone
represent some 56 percent of the total population
of the EU-27.
The European commission wants to set aside
some €373bn for its cohesion policy post-2020.
Its broad aim is to reduce the gap in low-income
and low-growth regions.
The commission says the policy is designed for all
regions, and has a more 'tailored' approach (with
money geared towards less-developed regions,
transition regions, and more-developed regions.)
The less developed the region, the greater
flexibility in terms of spending, whereas more
developed regions will need to focus on areas like
innovation and climate change.
The commission has also promised to cut red tape
and make life easier by creating a single rulebook
for the various EU funds.
While such moves appear welcomed, there are
some concerns among regional authorities that
the big political compass remains centralised.
THE 'EUROPEAN SEMESTER'
Among them is the European Semester, a roadmap
that guides EU-level economic and fiscal policy
objectives in six-month cycles.
Woman riding her bike in Stockholm. Swedish mayor Carola
Gunnarsson wants greater say into how EU funds are divided
up and spent.
Photo: European Parliament
"The European Semester is not attentive to the
living conditions of people on the ground, it is
designed to deliver stability," conceded one EU
official.
It also means that if an EU state fails to control
its national budget deficit, then the European
Commission can request the funds be suspended.
To help guide EU states, the EU commission
in its proposal then shuffled money away from
Cohesion Policy to create a new 'Reform Support
Programme' worth some €25bn.
The programme rewards EU states that carry out
country-specific recommendations made at the EU
level, as an incentive not to risk funding cuts that
affect people on the ground.
The commission wants to use country-specific
recommendations drawn up under the European
Semester to serve as a guide when it comes to
programming the funds and the design of cohesion
policy programmes.
It means the European Semester would be used
as a tool to coordinate macroeconomic policies,
in what some critics say is divorced from the
everyday realities of people at the local level.
23 — REGIONS & CITIES 2018