Amending provisions financial management – Structural Funds - for Member States in difficulties

Key points:

The EESC approves the proposed amendments, which will help Member States that have been most affected by the crisis and have received financial support from the BoP mechanism or the EFSM.

The EESC regrets, however, that the Commission, building on its Communication Regional policy contributing to smart growth in Europe 2020 COM(2010) 553, has not gone one step further and proposed a 100% EU financing facility for Innovation and R&D-related projects, which could notably benefit SMEs.