European Union governments on Wednesday backed regulations that make the use of cohesion funds more flexible so countries can direct part of them to finance the reconstruction of affected areas due to natural disasters such as the recent DANA floods in Spain.
The agreement on the red lines of the Twenty-Seven was concluded at the level of ambassadors to the EU and opens the door to negotiations with the European Parliament, which plans to vote on the regulations during the December plenary session. Named restorationthe proposal makes the use of cohesion funds more flexible for the period 2021-2027 so that 10% of national allocations of the European Social Fund (ESF) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) can be redirected towards the reconstruction of areas affected by climate disasters.
Spain awarded for the entire period, a total of 35.376 million euros at 2020 prices (23.540 million from the ERDF and 11.153 million from the ESF), so 10% of this allocation would be equivalent to approximately 3.5 billion euros until 2027. The agreement between the governments therefore maintains the broad outlines of the European Commission’s proposal, but the Twenty-Seven have introduced a series of changes compared to it, as explained in a declaration from the Council of the EU, which represents the Member States.
Thus, the Twenty-Seven maintain that these funds can be used to mitigate the consequences of disasters that have occurredsince January 1 of this year (as planned in the Brussels proposal) but not after December 31, 2025. Furthermore, the capitals undertake to reduce the European co-financing rate from 100% to 95%, which means that the countries will have to take responsibility for 5 % of each expenditure compared to the situation of the initial proposal, in which all funds could be European without the need to resort to national resources.
Finally, countries recommend reduce to 25% the amount of funds that can be transferred to Member States as an advanceagainst the 30% proposed by the Community Executive and supported by the European Parliament. Pending negotiations between the two institutions, the bloc’s budget for 2025 – approved today by MEPs – already includes a €3 billion item of cohesion funds programmed to respond to natural disasters, but they do not will only be accessible when The Restore regulations are not approved.
The regulations must be approved by both the Council of the EU (Member States) as by the European Parliament. In this second institution, it passed a first examination this week when the regional development and employment commissions approved a report without amendments with the aim of speeding up its processing.
The Restore Regulation is one of the European instruments available in Spain to finance reconstruction measures in areas affected by the floods of the last days of October, in addition to the Civil Protection Mechanism or the Solidarity Fund, as well as the flexibility of agricultural funds from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). ) . ) and the crisis agricultural reserve.
