The Committee on Regional Development
adopted the own-initiative report drafted by Michael
THEURER (ADLE, DE) on the absorption of Structural and Cohesion Funds:
lessons learnt for the future cohesion policy of the EU.
Absorption capacity is the extent to
which a Member State and its regions are able to spend the financial
resources allocated from the Structural and Cohesion Funds in an effective
and efficient manner. Members recall that this capacity is necessary for
making a maximum contribution to economic, social and territorial cohesion
with the resources available from the EU funds.
Pointing out that efforts have been made
to ensure an acceleration in absorption capacities and budgetary
implementation of cohesion policy during 2010, Members point out that absorption problems have been caused by the
following main factors: (i) difficulties with completing the compliance
assessment procedures concerning the new management and control system, that
generally fall at the beginning of the programming period; (ii) global
economic recession, which has a direct effect in the form of the budgetary
restraint measures applied to public budgets and difficulties in obtaining
internal financing; (iii) insufficient resources to co-finance projects;
(iv) delays in the establishment and introduction of EU and national rules or
related guidance, and incomplete or unclear rules; (v) delays in the
translation of the guidance notes and in obtaining clarification from the
Commission, and inconsistency of Commission guidance; (vi) over-complicated
and over-strict national procedures, and frequent changes therein.
The report presents a
certain number of proposals with a view to improving absorption capacity:
- encourage and maintain an extensive dialogue
with all stakeholders at national, regional and local level in order
better to identify the needs of the labour market;
- improve awareness and accessibility of
the ESF and to update project-building capacities in order to contribute
to the creation of new, decent jobs and more effective social inclusion;
- give priority to the integrated
approach for local and regional development projects, encouraging the
development of bottom-up local initiatives for the ESF and making it
possible to combine several sources of financing: operational
programmes, national programmes and private resources at the individual
project level;
- the ESF objectives to be brought into
line with the real requirements of a labour market that is in need of
investment in upgrading vocational training and in measures to protect
craft trades;
- the need for greater synergy and
complementarity between all the shared management funds (ERDF, ESF,
Cohesion Fund, EAFRD and EFF) and the EDF in the case of certain
European regions which neighbour ACP countries
- review the level of co-financing to reflect better the level of development, EU added value,
types of action, beneficiaries, their absorption capacities and
development opportunities;
- an adequate Community budget to
be allocated to cohesion policy at a time when national and local
contributions are being hampered by national budgetary austerity
policies;
- pay more attention to project
preparation and to draw up a project pipeline so that the risk of
cost overrun can be minimised and a high absorption rate attained;
- pay attention to better management
of human resources by making further efforts to attract and retain
qualified staff to manage EU funds, by promoting high-quality training
for them, and by avoiding any replacement of staff unless this is
strictly necessary and guided by the sole aim of improving their
effectiveness and consequently the absorption capacity;
- establish an Internet-based platform
for beneficiaries, local and regional stakeholders and government
institutions to exchange best-practices and information on obstacles,
problems and their possible solutions;
- use the information and
communication systems to develop an early warning system on the
absorption of the funds.
The report also stresses the need to ensure
that the European Social Fund (ESF) is used more effectively to address the
challenges posed by the current economic financial downturn. It makes the
following recommendations:
- ensure that the ESF is used in a more
efficient way, to respond to the present socio-economic challenges
brought about by the financial recession, at all levels and in all
Member States;
- ensure that the future ESF makes a
meaningful, targeted contribution to the implementation of the Europe
2020 Strategy in the fields of employment and social inclusion as a
visible, transparent, efficient, flexible, simple and user-friendly
instrument that is brought to bear to develop human capital, while
reflecting the specificities and needs of Member States and regions;
- the need to concentrate efforts on a limited
number of priorities – the most urgent among them being reducing record
levels of unemployment in the internal market, with special reference to
jobs for young people and women;
- improve awareness and accessibility of
the ESF and to update project-building capacities in order to contribute
to the creation of new, decent jobs and more effective social inclusion;
- on the basis of clear rules, to use the
possibility of advance payments to ESF beneficiaries to a greater extent.
Members reiterate that the mechanisms of
multi-level governance and the partnership principle are key elements in the
effectiveness of operational programmes and in high absorption capacity.