Thursday

23rd Mar 2023

Brussels keen to redirect €82bn for jobs and growth

  • Springs buds: talk in Brussels is switching emphasis from austerity to growth (Photo: mcarruth)

The EU commission wants to redirect €82bn worth of structural funds to projects aimed at boosting employment and growth, particularly in bailed-out countries, measures seen as both vague and inadequate by critics.

Anticipating a demand from Monday's EU summit to redeploy as yet unspent structural funds for employment-related projects, the EU commission on Friday (27 January) announced its intention to work with member states on redistributing €82 billion.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Speaking at a press conference with the Belgian premier, commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said: "What we can do is to redeploy structural funds, as long as member states agree, because this is always a partnership between the commission and member states."

He gave the example of Italy, whose recently appointed technocrat government asked for a "reprogramming" of funds to the tune of €3.1bn for education, broadband and railway investments in the country's poorer southern regions.

"Now we would like to do the same with programme countries where there is high youth unemployment," Barroso said.

A similar programme has been agreed with Greece as well, where projects worth €11.5bn should help build motorways, schools and energy efficiency in housing, commission spokesman Ton Van Lierop told this website. The task force of EU commission experts deployed to the country last year with the aim of assisting the government with its structural reforms required by the EU and IMF will "help" in implementing these new priorities, he added.

In Romania and Bulgaria, the EU's newest members and where structural funds go largely unspent year by year, the governments have accepted to have EU experts help them with the drafting and checking of the EU's notoriously bureaucratic project requirements.

But experts are sceptical that this new strategy will have any impact on the forecast recession in most member states.

"It's not enough money to really make a difference. If it was €82bn for research or in fiscal deductions for small and medium enterprises, maybe it would," says Diego Valiante, an economist with the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels-based think tank.

Instead of doing more of the same - letting member states select all sorts of "bridges to nowhere" and other irrelevant projects, the EU commission should link structural funds with labour market reforms needed in most member states, he said.

But Valiante also conceded that under the current budget - which ends in 2013 - there is little room for manoeuvre for both the commission and member states. "This one is finished, we will have to wait for the next multi-annual budget to revamp the rules," he said.

Franco-German 'growth' plan looks to EU funds and taxes

A six-point plan drafted by France and Germany suggests corporate tax 'co-ordination', an EU financial transactions tax and the re-deployment of EU funds in troubled countries as ways to spur growth and jobs.

Magazine

EU to link regional funds to strict deficit rules

The EU commission on Thursday proposed that from 2014 on, the bloc's structural funds be linked to strict budget deficit rules under the new economic governance legislation. Regional representatives and MEPs have criticsed the move.

EU leaders trying to shift focus from deficits to jobs

Besides a treaty on fiscal discipline, European leaders meeting in Brussels on Monday will also seek to adopt non-binding measures on employment. Their summit will come in the midst of a general strike expected to paralyse the EU capital.

EU unemployment hits record high

Twenty three million people in the EU are struggling to find jobs, as the economic crisis and austerity cuts unfold into severe social consequences.

Latest News

  1. The EU-Turkey migration deal is dead on arrival at this summit
  2. Sweden worried by EU visa-free deal with Venezuela
  3. Spain denies any responsibility in Melilla migrant deaths
  4. How much can we trust Russian opinion polls on the war?
  5. Banning PFAS 'forever chemicals' may take forever in Brussels
  6. EU Parliament joins court case against Hungary's anti-LGBTI law
  7. Three French MEPs to stay on election-observation blacklist
  8. Turkey's election — the Erdoğan vs Kılıçdaroğlu showdown

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality
  5. Promote UkraineInvitation to the National Demonstration in solidarity with Ukraine on 25.02.2023
  6. Azerbaijan Embassy9th Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting and 1st Green Energy Advisory Council Ministerial Meeting

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us