Energy crisis: Fitto urges EU countries to use available funds immediately

The Vice President of the European Commission Raffaele Fitto wrote today to the ministers of the EU countries responsible for cohesion policy to ask them to “urgently” use all available tools: “the European Union has the resources to respond, and we must mobilize them now“. The vice president announced this via social media, and will also send a similar letter to the Regions.

The European Union, explains Fitto, makes it available to member states and regions three funds to address the challenges of the transition and the energy crisis: the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF); the Cohesion Fund; the Just Transition Fund (JTF).

“To accelerate the use of these resources – recalls Fitto – the Member States and Regions can act on several fronts: create new financial instruments to advance payments and adopt all the necessary programmatic adjustments. The mid-term review of cohesion policy has already demonstrated that this policy is able to respond to the strategic priorities of the EU. With the reprogramming of 34.6 billion euros on competitiveness, defence, construction, water and energy, we have demonstrated that it is possible to act with flexibility and speed. Now we are opening up to a similar exercise, focused on energy.”

The Accelerate Eu plan, recalls Fitto, plans to “expand existing measures to support families and businesses to reduce the impact of the increase in energy prices; improve the energy efficiency of public buildings (schools, museums, sports facilities) to reduce consumption; accelerate the spread of clean energy and invest in energy infrastructure; support solutions for sustainable mobility and to reduce dependence on fossil fuels”.

Also in the action plan for fertilizers, for Fitto “cohesion can play its part. Concretely, what can be done: the development of systems for the collection and treatment of waste water and for the separate collection and treatment of urban organic waste; the diffusion of organic and bio-based fertilizers, deriving from the treatment of sewage sludge, from the production of biogas and from the recovery of phosphorus and nitrogen; the growth and competitiveness of SMEs in the fertilizer sector, including skills and research and innovation”.

The Commission, adds Fitto, “is ready to examine all proposals with the Member States, including possible revisions of the cohesion policy programmes, in a rapid and collaborative way. I am firmly convinced that the ERDF, the Cohesion Fund and the Just Transition Fund can provide a fundamental support to face the challenges of the energy crisis. The resources are there. The tools are there. What is needed now is to act quickly and decisively, in the interests of our citizens and our businesses”, he concludes.