The Future of EU Structural & Cohesion Funds post-2006
The current round of Structural and Cohesion Funds programmes will come to an end at the end of 2006. At the European Council of 15-16 December 2005 a settlement was reached on the next EC budget, including future Structural and Cohesion Funds expenditure, for the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective.
Following the December Council, the Member States have now completed negotiations on the package of Structural Funds Regulations that will govern future spending programmes. The Regulations were formally signed off by both the Council and the European Parliament on 31 July and they entered into force on 1 August 2006.
The only remaining step in the EU-level negotiations is for the Member States and the European Parliament to agree a final set of Community Strategic Guidelines, which will establish the high-level EU priorities for future Structural Funds spending. The Member States are now close to completing their discussion of the Guidelines, and the Finnish Presidency aims to reach final agreement on the document in October.
As part of the process of implementation agreed in the negotiations, each Member State will publish a National Strategic Reference Framework setting out its priorities for support from the Structural Funds. On 28 February 2006 the Government launched a consultation on a draft National Strategic Reference Framework for future Structural Funds Programmes in the UK. As well as inviting comments on the draft National Framework we also sought views on the methodology for allocating the UK’s Competitiveness funds and administrative arrangements for delivering the Funds in the next budgetary cycle. The consultation ended on 22 May 2006 and the Government aims to publish a response in the early autumn.