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REPORT (2024/2106(INI))

On possibilities for simplification of cohesion funds

A-10-2025-0138

Committee on Regional Development · Rapporteur: Vladimir Prebilič

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Written by a language model from the full text only; every figure comes from the text. The paragraph links open the paragraph a statement rests on — check the text itself before relying on it.

The report calls for simplifying cohesion funds while preserving their core principles, such as shared management and partnership, and warns against diverting funds to crises. It urges reducing administrative burdens, avoiding gold-plating, and enhancing digitalisation and coordination between funds. It opposes centralisation and renationalisation, supports place-based programmes, and calls for stronger involvement of local and regional authorities. It recommends more pre-financing, simplified cost options, and a balanced funding framework combining results-based and cost-based approaches. It stresses the need for robust audits, fraud prevention, and the mandatory use of IT tools like ARACHNE.

Committee position. The Committee on Regional Development proposes a resolution with recommendations for simplifying cohesion funds, emphasising the need to preserve core principles and avoid centralisation.

Key points

  1. Calls for a permanent emergency instrument within the EU budget to avoid diverting cohesion funds from their primary objectives.
  2. Insists that future reforms uphold shared management, multilevel governance, and a place-based approach, with binding partnership principle.
  3. Calls on Member States to avoid gold-plating and on the Commission to make timely proposals for the 2028-2034 period.
  4. Urges maintaining or increasing the cohesion budget and improving coordination with other EU funds.
  5. Recommends a single set of rules and an integrated IT interface for beneficiaries, avoiding new small funds.
  6. Supports a single European platform for access to EU funds, with real-time data exchange and common dashboards.
  7. Opposes top-down centralisation and a single national programme, insisting on place-based programmes at NUTS 2 level.
  8. Calls for increased pre-financing, especially for rural, cross-border, and insular areas, and for a flexible funding framework.
  9. Urges the Commission to make IT tools like EDES and ARACHNE mandatory for all EU funds to prevent fraud.
  10. Calls for more direct access to EU funding for local and regional authorities, including in rule-of-law breach cases.
  11. Recommends standardising simplified cost options and easing requirements for smaller beneficiaries.
  12. Calls for a risk-based audit strategy and tighter scrutiny for programmes under rule-of-law mechanisms.

Who is affected

  • Local and regional authorities: more involvement and direct funding, but also more administrative capacity building.
  • Beneficiaries, including SMEs and civil society: reduced administrative burden and better access to funds.
  • Member States: must avoid gold-plating and ensure partnership principle, with stricter oversight in some cases.
  • Eastern border regions: benefit from higher pre-financing and EU co-financing rates.

Figures and deadlines

  • 9.5% pre-financing for programmes in NUTS 2 regions bordering Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine.
  • 100% EU financing for those programmes.
  • 54 to 58% of public investments by LRAs.
  • Approximately 30% of the EU budget for cohesion policy.
  • Over 50 multiannual programmes in 2021-2027.
  • 40% centrally managed under the current MFF.
  • Fewer than 100,000 inhabitants for simplified procedures for local authorities.

Legal basis: Articles 4, 162, 174 to 178, and 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union