“[Cohesion funding] has to be a long term development kind of approach; it has to involve local and regional partners,” the EU’s commissioner for cohesion, Elisa Ferreira, said in response to a question from POLITICO. “All these elements are not necessarily found in emergency instruments” like the RRF.
Hard sell
Commission officials concede that they will have a hard time selling the new cohesion model to poorer member countries.
One government official said that countries currently struggling to use cohesion funding will hardly welcome stricter rules and a tighter link to reforms.
Member states complain that a mountain of red tape is preventing them from getting their hands on their share of RRF cash as it is.
“When I ask actors, when I ask municipalities, they say it’s more difficult [to get money under the RRF than under the EU budget],” Margarida Marques, a Portuguese socialist MEP, said during an event this week.
But Rubio from the Jacques Delors Institute suggests that poorer capitals might ultimately have little leverage to oppose new rules.
The need to cough up fresh cash to boost growth in countries waiting to join — such as Ukraine and the Western Balkan states — and repay the post-pandemic debt might undermine calls for a bigger budget.
“If [member countries] fear losing money, they may be confronted with a situation where they don’t have a lot of capacity to ask for the same money without strings attached,” she said.
