The Committee on Regional Development adopted the report jointly draft by Lambert van NISTELROOIJ (EPP, NL) and Constanze KREHL (S&D, DE) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2013 laying down common provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 as regards support to structural reforms in Member States.
The committee recommended that the European Parliament reject the Commission proposal for the reasons set out below:
As a reminder, the proposal seeks to amend the Common Provisions Regulation (CPR) in order to allow the performance reserve (6% of the resources allocated to the ERDF, ESF and CF Investment for Jobs and Growth Goal, to the EAFRD and to the EMFF) to be used for structural reforms instead of for the ‘specific priorities’ set out in Partnership Agreements.
Whilst the European Parliament did not originally support the concept of a performance reserve when the current cohesion package was adopted, Members considered that it is important that the funds in the performance reserve are spent as originally intended, on cohesion projects, and are not diverted to structural reforms.