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Brussels – Slovakia is among the EU countries that want to streamline the use of resources through cohesion policy. This was stated by the Minister of Investment, Regional Development and Informatization of the Slovak Republic Richard Raši (Hlas-SD) during the Thursday (November 28) meeting of the EU Council for Competitiveness focused on cohesion policy. This is reported by the TASR correspondent.
The last discussion on cohesion policy under the leadership of the Hungarian presidency in the EU Council, according to him, concerned ways to set eurofunds after 2027 in the new programming period.
“The greatest possible support is sought from the member countries for a unified position. We are in the group of countries that are friends of cohesion, there are about 15 of us, and we want to go with the system of shared management. That is, as many participants as possible from one country should be involved in setting up eurofunds and preparing the administrative process, in where eurofunds should go,” said Raši. He specified that this involves the involvement of regions, cities, and municipalities, and people who live there.
According to him, this is an effort to ensure that cohesion funds after 2027 are not “managed from above”, as was the case with the national recovery plans, when only officials in individual ministries made decisions.
In practice, this means preparing such a national position that will be accommodating to the recipients of this development aid, ensuring simplification of drawing and also its flexibility, so that the redirection of eurofunds can change according to newly arisen needs. Such were, for example, the pandemic or the war in Ukraine.
These are situations when member states have “tied hands” and cannot transfer funds where they are most needed.
“The main message was that we want eurofunds, we want shared and multi-level management. We want it to be simpler and to have the possibility to transfer these resources ourselves in the member states, tailoring them. We don’t want to be very tied by regulations on where exactly these eurofunds should be,” explained Raši.
He added that if some regions need to invest more in infrastructure and less in the digital economy, this option should exist.
The programming period after 2027 also includes the possibility of EU enlargement to new member states. Raši admitted that in such a case, the total amount of funds through cohesion policy will be divided among more players. And he conceded that countries supporting cohesion will ask for more resources in the future long-term EU budget.
In this context, he reminded that in Slovakia up to three-quarters of the money, which goes to public investments, to the modernization of municipalities, towns, and regions, comes from European funds.
“We must prepare for the fact that one day these eurofunds will end. After 2027 they will still be there, but it is questionable whether they will be later. Which means that we must use eurofunds not only to replace missing funds for cities and municipalities but to invest in something that will bring more money to cities and municipalities in the future,” he declared. (November 28)