Regions will be paying particularly close attention over the next six months to the legislative passage of a proposal to simplify European structural funds, presented by the Commission on 22 July. One of its most significant features is that it aims to give a financial boost to regions at a time when budgets are having a rough ride from the crisis, risking delays or oblivion for projects being cofinanced by structural funds. Initially, the Commission had planned to scrap for 2009 and 2010 the obligation for states to cofinance projects benefiting from European Social Fund (ESF) assistance. But the Council of Ministers threw out the idea and it is now buried once and for all. In the committee of permanent representatives (Coreper), member states preferred two other mechanisms: a new advance instalment in 2010 for the ESF and the cohesion funds for the benefit of those countries most affected by the crisis and easing of the rule on the automatic decommitment for 2007.

The goal is to allow programmes to be launched quickly. It is a sort of pre-financing budget usually calculated as a percentage of the structural fund allowance. For 2009 for example, it should have risen to 5 billion euro. But, because of the crisis, the institutions agreed to inject an extra 6.25 billion euro in advances. The Council is therefore suggesting repeating the operation in 2010 for social and cohesion fund programmes in countries particularly affected, such as Romania, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. It is also suggesting an easing of the decommitment rules, those known as N+2 (for the EU15 minus Portugal and Greece) and N+3 (for the EU12 + Portugal and Greece). These foresee that community funds allocated to a programme are lost if they are not used within two, or three, years of the year in which they were approved. A Damacles sword hangs over the regions’ heads, which will be specially lifted for budgets approved in 2007.

Of course, all that will only be valid if the new regulation is adopted. With the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, there is now a codecision procedure – rather than just simple assent – which gives Parliament the possibility of using its weight to change the Council agreement. The fact remains, though, that it is hard to imagine MEPs further blocking this breathing space expected by the regions, especially as the Commission has already indicated, in the committee on regional development, that it will not object to the solutions being recommended by states. Observers have not failed to point out that the Council compromise, even though reached unanimously, is extremely fragile and would not survive the slightest change.