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Local leaders welcome first steps to simplify cohesion policy but oppose diverting resources to the European Fund for Strategic Investment  

Rapporteur Rijsberman "No extra mandatory controls should be introduced on top of international accepted rules as authorities should trust each other’s findings. We need bureaucracy to not stand in the way of making good use of European subsidies for the prosperity of all Europeans"

The European Committee of the Regions backs the European Commission's proposals (so-called Omnibus-Regulation) to simplify the implementation of European Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds but regrets that the new rules would open the way to shifting resources from cohesion policy to the centrally managed European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI).

With the opinion on the Financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union , drafted by Michiel Rijsberman (NL/ALDE), member of the Executive Council of the Province of Flevoland, EU cities and regions support the proposals presented by the European Commission in September 2016 to make easier and more flexible the implementation of the EU budget.

The Committee is pleased to see that a number of simplification measures elaborated by cohesion policy practitioners found their way into the legislative proposal, such as the move towards a more performance-based approach to payments by the Commission. At the same time, the CoR stresses that a revision involving 15 legislative acts should proposed only after a fully-fledged impact assessment.

Cities and regions recommend introducing the possibility of tailoring ad hoc audit strategy for investment programmes backed by ESI funds (operational programmes). Audit strategies should adopt methods and principles in use in the different Member States - such as proportionality principles, and reward good results on previous audits.

"We urgently need to work on easier rules, and less bureaucracy. Good rules are needed and audits are necessary to find mistakes or prevent fraud, but authorities shouldn’t create extra mandatory control mechanisms, on top of international accepted rules; they should rely and trust each other’s findings. It is unacceptable that member states craft new, redundant checks which go further than what is necessary", said Mr Rijsberman, mentioning the example of the Netherlands, where some projects get up to six successive audits.

With regards to the integration of ESI funds with the EFSI, local leaders welcomes the proposals allowing for improving their combination – which is extremely hard in the current legal framework. At the same time, the firmly opposed any possibility of shifting resources from Cohesion policy to other centrally managed programmes, in particular to increase the risk-bearing capacity of the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI).

As for the next steps to simplify the use of EU funds, the Committee calls for a revision of the corresponding delegated and implementing acts and urge to perform a radical simplification of cohesion policy within the proposals for the programming period post-2020.

 

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