On
Thursday 2 February, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) will publish a special report on the use of Cohesion policy funds in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABOUT THE TOPIC
Cohesion policy is one of the biggest policy areas of the EU budget, with an allocation of €355 billion for the 2014-2020 period. To make EU funds more flexible and practical for addressing the COVID-19 crisis, the European Commission introduced amendments to the Regulation, allowing resources which remain available to be redirected.
In 2020, it adopted the
Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII) and the
Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative Plus (CRII+). A further €50.4 billion in funding was provided through the
Recovery Assistance for Cohesion and the Territories of Europe (REACT-EU). The primary objective was to provide additional flexibility and liquidity to EU countries at an unprecedented time of crisis.
ABOUT THE AUDIT
The auditors examined whether the substantial changes to the 2014-2020 cohesion policy framework through CRII/CRII+ and REACT-EU had actually provided adequate flexibility to help Member States to use cohesion policy funds to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The timing of this audit will allow the European Commission to take the ECA's findings into account in time for the 2014-2020 ex-post evaluation, and for its preparation of the future cohesion policy framework.
FOR PRESS
ECA press office will hold a virtual briefing on Thursday 2 February. Journalists who wish to participate should contact
press@eca.europa.eu for details.
The report and press release will be published on the ECA website
eca.europa.eu at 5:00 p.m. CET on Thursday 2 February.
The ECA member responsible for this report is Iliana Ivanova.
The ECA's special reports set out the results of its audits of EU policies and programmes or management topics related to specific budgetary areas. The ECA selects and designs these audit tasks to be of maximum impact by considering the risks to performance or compliance, the level of income or spending involved, forthcoming developments and political and public interest.