Subject: EU Recovery Funds for regions and cities
On October 26th, President Von Der Leyen informed Spanish Regional Ministers that every Member State would decide which share of the projects of the EU Recovery Fund goes to SMEs. She also committed herself to put regions and cities at the centre of it.
This is coherent with the Commission paper SWD(2020) 205 final that says “Member States should detail the processes and structures set up at national, regional and local levels to ensure complementarity and coordination of the management of various Union sources of funding in line with Article 22 of the Proposal”. It also opens the door for regional and local participation in the decision-making process to allocate the funds. However, the Spanish Government states that regions and cities will only take part in the implementation of projects, not its selection.
Taking all this into account,
How will the Commission ensure that regions and cities take part in the decision-making process to allocate the funds from the EU Recovery Fund?
What legal and organization framework will the Commission put in place to ensure that grants from the EU Recovery Fund are allocated with objective criteria to the more competitive projects and that SMEs get a fair share?
