ATHENS – The European Commission expects that the 2021-2027 EU funding programmes will act as a “game changer” for Greece, which was among the first countries to sign the relevant agreements and approve the relevant programmes, European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms Elisa Ferreira told the Athens-Macedonian News Agency during the 20th European Week of the Regions and Cities held in Brussels.
“…we have a lot of expectation on the use of these funds by Greece,” she said.
Ferreira noted that Greece was the first to sign a Partnership Agreement with the European Commission on the 2021-2027 funding programmes, in the last days of July, as well as “the first country that has already approved all the operational programmes and its transition fund programmes.”
She also pointed to the fact that the use of 2014-2020 funds was very high in Greece and referred to her visit to Western Macedonia and her talks with actors on the ground in this transition area
“We have a lot of expectation that this plan, or this period, 2021-2027, will be a kind of a game changer, in the positive sense, to speed up the development of Greece in general but also inside Greece,” Ferreira said.
She noted that she had the opportunity during her visit to speak with certain leaders of the regions about their ideas, during which she “understood that they had different objectives and rightly so, because regions are different.”
The new package of EU programmes – with funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the European Social Fund+ (ESF+), the Cohesion Fund, the Just Transition Fund (JTF) and the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) – has a total budget of 26.1 billion euros, of which 20.9 billion euros are contributed by the EU and 5.3 billion euros are from national funds.
In a press conference about the 2022 European Week of Regions and Cities, Commissioner Ferreira highlighted the importance of EU cohesion policy, saying it was the “glue that keeps Europe united”, had acted as a “fire-fighter” during the pandemic and was the first to respond to the social and economic repercussions of the war in Ukraine, with a central role in dealing with the energy crisis.
