Poland will benefit from the cohesion funds European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said would be made available to help flood-hit regions, an economist told Euractiv Poland, dispelling earlier opposition claims that Warsaw would gain nothing from such aid.
Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that €10 billion from the Cohesion Fund could be made available to countries hit by severe flooding, with Poland set to receive €5 billion.
The money will be transferred from other EU programmes co-funded with the Cohesion Fund, although no details have yet been made public.
Even if the support promised by von der Leyen is not ‘new’ money, as it would be in the case of the EU Solidarity Fund, Poland will still gain a lot from it, according to economist Krzysztof Biegun of the Wroclaw University of Economics and Business.
“It is due to the changed rules. Firstly, the promised money won’t require co-financing from member states to allow more flexibility. Secondly, the funds can be used as pre-financing for investment, not as a refund,” Biegun told Euractiv Poland.
However, the opposition in Poland has claimed that by mobilising cohesion funds for the flood-affected regions, the European Commission would actually be giving Poland its own money from the country’s envelope negotiated by the former PiS (ECR) government.
“Tusk is lying to the Poles again. The money he supposedly made available from the EU for flood victims is Cohesion Fund money, negotiated by the PiS government,” PiS MP Janusz Kowalski wrote on X, referring to Prime Minister Donald Tusk (PO, EPP).
Poland “would have received this money, regardless of the tragic consequences of the floods,” Kowalski added.
Tusk claimed otherwise, saying that there was a high probability that Poland would not see the money if the rules were not changed.
“In theory, this money was already in our portfolio, (…) but we would not have been able to spend it for various reasons. Now they will be freed from procedures that would probably have prevented their use, also due to delays in recent years in the disbursement of EU funds,” he said at one of his press briefings last week.
To verify Tusk’s statement, one would need to know which programmes the money would be moved from, which the government has not yet announced, Biegun explained.
“We need more details to be disclosed to speak on the matter,” he said.
Poland to ask for additional funds
Still, Poland doubts that the €5 million in cohesion money will be enough to compensate for the damage.
As a result, Warsaw will request the activation of the EU Solidarity Fund, which provides financial assistance to EU member states and candidate countries following major natural disasters and, from 2020, major public health emergencies.
The European Commission “is open for mobilising the fund, but to do so, it needs an application from the member states,” a Commission spokesperson told Euractiv Poland.
In total, the government would spend 23 billion zlotys (€5.4 billion) from both the state budget and the EU budget on post-flood recovery, Tusk announced on Tuesday.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | Euractiv.pl)
Source: euractiv.com
