EU - WHAT IS THE EUROPEAN REGIONAL FUND ? AND WHAT DOES IT SUPPORT ?

NOVEMBER 15:

What is the European Regional Fund?  What has it done?

Following the first enlargement of the EU in 1973 ( with the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark ) it was soon decided to mobilise EU funds to stimulate the development of less developed regions in the EU.  This was part of the policy of solidarity between all parts of the EU, which is an essential value in Europe.  And it was also done with the knowledge that if you accelerate the economic development in areas left behind it will have a clear positive effect for everybody in the EU.  Most member states had already national programmes to stimulate development in less developed regions.  But in 1975 the EU started the European Development and Regional Fund, often just called the EU Regional Fund.  Its first political boss was the British commissioner George Thomson from Scotland.

The principle for the Fund was and still is that it particularly supports investments in certain priority sectors. A condition for EU support is that a member state also gives support to the project.  The main decisions on who gets which support is taken by the European Commission on behalf of the EU. The daily management is for practical reasons done by national or regional authorities in the member states.

As the EU had more member states ( 1981: Greece; 1986: Spain and Portugal; 1995: Finland, Sweden and Austria; and 2014: ten countries from East and Southern Europe ) it was needed to allocate more resources also to the Regional Fund.

Today’s priority sectors for the Fund are:  innovation and research; digital projects; small and medium-sized companies; and projects reducing the emission of CO2.

The total budget for the Regional Fund is for the years 2014-20:  280,7 billion €.  Together with the other and smaller EU funds about 25 % of the total EU budget is allocated to these development purposes.

If you want to see how the Regional Fund is using its money on the different priority sectors and member state by member state you have the information on this site:

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/funding/ 

It is Poland, which as a country gets the biggest amount from the Regional Fund.  If you look at regions in need for support, 7 out of the 8 most qualified regions are in the United Kingdom.

The negotiations on a new multiannual budget for the years 2021-27 have almost finished ( Nov. 2020 ). The Commission has proposed, that the Funds in the future must be more flexible and more easy to manage.  At the same time it suggests a small reduction of the budget allocated to the funds ( about 5 % ).  A very important discussion takes place on the question :  if member states do not fulfill the key conditions for being a member of the EU ( such as respect for the fundamental European values spelled out in the Treaties ), should they then continue to get the same support from EU’s funds ?   Or as the former Belgian prime minister and present member of the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, says to Hungary and Poland :  You want our money, but not our values !  The German EU presidency and the European Parliament just agreed that countries in the future will only get EU funds as usual, if they respect all the EU rules and principles, they have signed when becoming members.  Poland and Hungary are still against this new agreement – surprise surprise ☹     It will be very interesting to see the final outcome. Personally, I believe that all member states at the end will have to follow the rules.



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