{"id":425782,"date":"2025-05-06T15:11:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-06T13:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/05\/06\/corte-dei-conti-ue-coesione-difesa-rischi\/"},"modified":"2025-05-06T16:36:52","modified_gmt":"2025-05-06T14:36:52","slug":"eca-using-cohesion-funds-for-defence-risks-regional-disparities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/05\/06\/eca-using-cohesion-funds-for-defence-risks-regional-disparities\/","title":{"rendered":"ECA: “Using cohesion funds for defence risks regional disparities”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Cohesion funds used for<\/strong> new and different priorities, including defence? <\/strong>Not a good idea, given “the<\/strong> proposed measures could increase complexity, put pressure on administrative capacity<\/strong> and decrease\u00a0policy focus on reducing regional disparities.” It is this the opinion<\/a> of the European Court of Auditors, which sees risks<\/strong> in the mid-term program review proposal for regions <\/a>developed by the European Commission.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As Executive Vice President Raffaele Fitto often explains, the EU executive offers governments and local authorities the option of drawing on structural funds to finance five new priorities (competitiveness, defence, housing policies, water management and security, and energy transition).\u00a0While acknowledging that the choice is not mandatory and remains \u2018a political matter for the EU co-legislators\u2019, and therefore their decision, the Luxembourg auditors believe that shifting cohesion policy resources to the new priorities entails “the risk that the implementation of these new priorities will weaken the territory-based approach and negatively affect the effectiveness of the policy, resulting in increased regional disparities<\/strong>.” Appropriate remedies are therefore called for to “mitigate” this risk.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/03\/06\/leaders-back-von-der-leyens-defense-plan-meloni-italy-will-not-divert-cohesion-funds\/<\/a>
\nRegarding the defence chapter, ECA’s opinion highlights that concerns are raised about “the way <\/strong>transparency obligations and the principle of ‘not cause significant harm’<\/strong> (i.e. ensuring that EU initiatives are in line with the Union’s climate and environmental objectives) may apply to defence investments<\/strong>.” The latter, in essence, would have nothing to do with structural funds.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn’t end there, because the von der Leyen team is also challenged on the initiative regarding the favourable EU contribution if states and regions choose to use EU resources for new priorities. The ECA believes that the\u00a0<\/strong>100 per cent European funding<\/strong> (i.e., no obligation for public or private co-financing), regardless of the regional level of economic development, “could disproportionately favour rich regions<\/strong> and reduce the overall leverage of EU cohesion funds,” and the recommendation here is to leave traditional co-financing rates unchanged.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
“European Court of Auditors slams Raffaele Fitto<\/strong> and demolishes his plan to revise cohesion policy,” is the reaction of the 5 Star Movement<\/strong> delegation in the European Parliament. “This proposal should be withdrawn or amended decisively by the European Parliament,” they argue\u00a0and\u00a0promise to work to that end, as early as tomorrow’s (May 7) vote on the cohesion policy review text.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luxembourg auditors critical of Commission measures. They warn about the burden on administrations, difficulties in managing funds and less attention on the poorest territories. The 5 Star Movement: “Raffaele Fitto smacked down.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":217246,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[30809,25681],"tags":[25871,30670,27336,26958,26025,27088,26763,29676],"class_list":["post-425782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defence-security","category-politics","tag-fondi-di-coesione-en","tag-corte-dei-conti-en","tag-raphael-fitto"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425782"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425797,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425782\/revisions\/425797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}