On the possibilities for simplification of cohesion funds
BUDG-AD-770223
Committee on Budgets · Rapporteur: Isabel Benjumea Benjumea
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The Committee on Budgets opinion on simplifying cohesion funds calls for reducing administrative burdens, especially for small beneficiaries, and preserving the policy's long-term goals.¶¶¶ It asks the Commission to simplify rules, increase pre-financing, improve fund access, and ensure flexibility without jeopardizing cohesion objectives.¶¶¶
Committee position. The Committee on Budgets proposes amendments to the draft report, emphasizing simplification for beneficiaries, preserving cohesion policy's long-term role, and opposing centralisation.¶¶¶
Key points
- Calls for cohesion policy to remain a top priority post-2027, with continuity and predictability, and warns against budget cuts or disproportionate conditionalities.¶
- Urges simplification to focus on beneficiaries, scrapping red tape, and promoting cross-border cooperation, without undermining transparency or accountability.¶
- Requests increasing public procurement thresholds to ease burdens on small projects, especially at local level.¶
- Demands a bottom-up, beneficiary-oriented approach with mandatory consultation of local authorities, social partners, and civil society.¶
- Calls for simplified standards based on project size and risk, more digital tools and lump sums, while keeping ex post scrutiny.¶
- Asks for simplified integrated frameworks and a single entry point to avoid parallel schemes and align eligibility and audit rules.¶
- Encourages strategic use of ITI and CLLD tools and dedicated financing for them.¶
- Opposes top-down centralisation and stresses safeguarding regional and local roles.¶
- Calls for tailored increases in pre-financing for liquidity-constrained beneficiaries.¶
- Proposes measures to prevent double funding, including mandatory interoperability of databases and real-time data exchange.¶
- Calls for better matching payment profiles to implementation cycles and assessing administrative hurdles.¶
- Recommends risk-based audits and preventive controls to reduce duplication while maintaining oversight.¶