European Council agreed on February 8 on the EU Budget 2014-2020. New Multi Financial Framework will now be discussed at the European Parliament. The following points recapitulate the changes for the cohesion policy:

The Cohesion Policy still supports two main goals Investment and growth and European territorial cooperation but it will now have a classification system for the 2014-2020 period consisting of three categories instead of two:

• less developed regions (GDP per capita < 75% of EU average),
• transition regions (GDP per capita between 75% and 90%),
• developed regions (GDP per capita > 90%).

The category of ‘transition region’ has been created to soften the move out from the less developed category and replace the “phasing out” support provided by the convergence objective which ends in 2014.

The allocation of funds should be granted as following:

• €164 billion to less developed regions,
• €31 billion to transition regions,
• €50 billion to more developed regions.

Non-exhaustive outline of the reform objectives of the cohesion policy for 2014-2020:

• Concentrate on a small number of priorities,
• Focus on results  (change of the result indicators),
• Define a smaller number of priorities,
• Increase the use of conditionality.

For more information – notably the allocation of funds by category of regions : have a look at the general presentation of the European Commission or dig further in the detailed presentation of DG Regio.

To be continued…