Croatia is expected to be allocated €8.7 billion under cohesion policy for the period 2021-2027, or €9.8 billion if inflation is taken into account, the European Commission (EC) said on Tuesday.

According to the EC, cohesion funds have been reduced by 7 percent, while the European Parliament estimated they have been slashed by around 10 percent.

The cohesion policy, for which €373 billion has been allocated in the next multiannual financial period, is the chief instrument of assistance to poorer EU regions so they can catch up with developed regions.

The largest portion of cohesion funds is therefore invested in the poorest regions, whose GDP is less than 75 percent of the EU average, even though all regions are entitled to cohesion funds.

In the present multiannual financial period 2014-2020, Croatia has €8.6 billion at its disposal, expressed in prices from 2014. If inflation is taken into account, the sum rises to €9.3 billion. This means that in the 2021-2027 financial framework, it has been given 500 million or 5.5 percent less than in the present financial period.

The biggest losers in relation to the present multiannual financial period are Hungary, the Czech Republic and Estonia, which, under the EC proposal, would each receive 24 percent less in cohesion funds. They are followed by Poland (-23.3 percent) and Slovakia (-21.7 percent).

On the other hand, cohesion funds would go up for Bulgaria, Greece and Romania (+8 percent) as well as Italy (+6.4 percent), Finland (+5.1 percent), and Spain (+5 percent).

At its meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday, the Commission proposed a regulation on the implementation of cohesion policy in the next multiannual financial framework, the first in a series of sectoral proposals regarding the multiannual financial framework.

The Commission is due to announce proposals for all areas which are financed from the EU budget by mid-June.

Apart from funding under cohesion policy, the countries will also have access to funds for agriculture, including rural development, funds for trans-European corridors, for research, education and youth, for stimulating structural reforms regarding the adoption of the euro, and considerable funds from the European Investment Fund.

The EC on May 2 proposed the new multiannual financial framework for the period 2021-2027, which in nominal terms is slightly bigger than the present financial framework 2014-2020, but with fewer funds for cohesion policy and agriculture.

For the 2021-27 period the EC has proposed a budget of €1,135 billion (expressed in prices from 2018). In current prices and taking into account the expected inflation, this amounts to €1,279 billion.

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