EU's proposed amendments for countries receiving monies from the cohesion fund,ie countries whose gross national income (GNI) per capita is below 90% of the EU average. is going to create some friction.
Currently, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia receive money from it. The rest of the countries are “donors” and do not receive money from the mechanism. The official aim of the EU with the CF is “reduce the economic gap between richer and poorer” EU states.However, the amendments will make the funding conditional on reforms, essentially this is the richer states dictating to the poorer states.
"The proposed conditionality clauses would mimic those attached to the EU’s pandemic-era €800bn fund, which disbursed money based on countries implementing pre-agreed reforms and investments. Those included a labour market reform in Spain, changes to Italy’s justice system and adapting Belgium’s pensions system."
Be interesting to see what these reforms cover and whether they will necessitate changes in pensions, tax or labour legislation.
The FT link below opens for me however the archived version is also below
Commission says era of ‘funding with no conditions’ is gone
www.ft.com
www.politico.eu
