Source: European Parliament
Parliament and Council negotiators have reached a provisional agreement on changes to the European Social Fund+ to boost skills in the defence and decarbonisation industries.
The co-legislators agreed to support EU-countries using ESF+ funding for skills development in the defence sector and decarbonising industries. Regions bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine will also receive additional support, highlighting their special needs in a tense geopolitical environment.
Under the new rules, EU-countries would receive additional pre-financing of 1.5% based on their amended programme budget if they allocate at least 10% of resources to the new priority skills in civil preparedness and the defence industry, and to decarbonisation. Regions bordering Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine can receive up to 9.5% pre-financing.
In addition to the pre-financing, EU-countries can benefit from a maximum co-financing rate for the dedicated priorities that is 10 percentage points higher than current ones and from 20% exceptional pre-financing.
When amending their existing programmes, EU-countries will have to include obligations to ensure that beneficiaries respect certain working and employment conditions. The new law ensures that micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises will have priority access to the fund to help them develop skills under the new priorities. The agreement also includes language on rule of law conditionality, ensuring that funds frozen because of breaches of EU values cannot be reallocated until the conditions are fulfilled.
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Rapporteur is discussing similar proposals in the context of the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund and the Just Transition Fun