(18 April 2013) – The European Commission has today presented an overview of how EU Structural Funds are working in Member States.
The ‘Strategic Report’ on the implementation of 2007-2013 Cohesion Policy programmes pulls together available information from Member States, up to end-2011 in most cases. Investments under the ERDF, Cohesion Fund and ESF are helping to weather the crisis and produce growth.
Innovation and small business are receiving a boost from cohesion policy investments with many more in the pipeline. So far, 53 240 RTD projects and 16 000 business-research projects received investment and 53 160 start-ups have been supported.
As funds are utilised and projects get off the ground, the report documents a significant increase in the number of people supported in in the area of employment from around 10 million annually before 2010 to some 15 million on an annual basis since then.