Slovakia has not managed to spend some €6 billion of the EU support earmarked for Bratislava from the last budgetary period of 2014-2020, making it one of the worst-performing member states in the bloc.
Slovakia absorbed only €1.87 billion in 2021 and €2.2 billion in 2022 on top of funds not spent in other years. When it comes to money already spent, Slovakia is the third worst among the EU member states.
When Veronika Remišová took over as investments and regional development minister, she vowed to remove some of the bureaucratic obstacles and thus make the absorption more efficient. In 2020, she presented a plan to absorb €2.9 billion in 2021 and €3.4 billion in 2022.
The problem is that Remišová and her ministry have no real leverage to force other ministries to spend more effectively something she vowed to change in the new programming period 2021-2027.
The government focused on transferring the money from EU funds to crisis mitigation in recent months, but EU Commission did not allow Slovakia to transfer as much as Remišová wanted to.
This year, the Ministry of Investments and Regional Development managed to conclude negotiations with the Commission on the rules for the new EU funds. The main change will be simplification – instead of ten managing authorities, only the Investment Ministry will lead the system.
This is, however, not welcomed in the municipalities, which call for more authority in the EU funds absorption.
Meanwhile, Slovakia already started with the absorption of the new programming period. First calls from the almost €13 billion package will go to the development of schools, sports centres, roads and insulation of houses and apartment blocks.
Remišová announced that she wants to quickly support the projects from the Just Transition Funds, which aims to support the regions dependent on fossil fuels, such as the coal-mining region Upper Nitra, where mining will stop by the end of this year.
(Michal Hudec | EURACTIV.sk)
Source: euractiv.com
