European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Remarks by Executive Vice-Presidents Mînzatu and Fitto on the reprogramming of cohesion policy funds under the mid-term review Brussels, 25 March 2026 Executive Vice-President Fitto Good morning, Today, together with Executive Vice President Minzatu - who I would like to thank for the excellent work and cooperation - we present the results of one year of work on t...
European Commission - Speech [Check Against Delivery] Remarks by Executive Vice-Presidents Mînzatu and Fitto on the reprogramming of cohesion policy funds under the mid-term review Brussels, 25 March 2026 Executive Vice-President Fitto Good morning, Today, together with Executive Vice President Minzatu - who I would like to thank for the excellent work and cooperation - we present the results of one year of work on the mid-term review of Cohesion Policy. To understand what we have achieved, we need to take a step back. As you remember, last year we started an important process. Why? Because the current Cohesion Policy programmes were designed several years ago. They were discussed between Member States, regions and the Commission between 2019 and 2021. The Partnership Agreements were then signed in 2022. These programmes represent one third of the European budget. However, for several reasons, their implementation only really started between 2024 and 2025 — in a world that had become very different from the one in which they had been designed. Continuing to invest according to priorities set in 2019 and 2020 was no longer possible. The world had changed — and it continues to change. New investment needs had emerged. Member States and regions were asking for a more responsive Cohesion Policy. This was therefore the first step in the modernisation of Cohesion Policy. Through the mid-term review we amended the regulation to give Member States and regions the flexibility to redirect part of their Cohesion Policy allocations towards today's priorities. The results are substantial. 186 programmes have been amended — 137 of them regional programmes, the rest national programmes. €34.6 billion is the total amount reallocated. Let me explain where these investments are going. In our proposal we identified five priorities. The first priority in terms of allocated resources is competitiveness. From 6G technologies to biotech, Member States and regions are investing €15.2 billion. Second: defence. €11.9 billion will support dual-use investments — drones, space assets and military mobility. I would like to underline that, as you know, the potential use of Cohesion Funds for defence purposes is a sensitive issue. With the mid-term review we made it possible — but it remains a choice made by governments and regions, accountable to their own citizens. Third: affordable housing. €3.3 billion will support projects such as the acquisition and renovation of existing housing. Fourth: water management. €3.1 billion will go to infrastructure to improve drinking water supply and water systems. And fifth: energy infrastructure. €1.2 billion will support interconnectors and industrial decarbonisation. These are not projections. These are not commitments on paper. This is real money that Member States and regions can already use. They reflect concrete decisions taken by governments and regions that looked at their territories and chose where to invest for the future. The €34 billion reallocated are distributed among Member States in line with the size of their Cohesion Policy envelopes. Several countries — particularly in Northern and Eastern Europe — have prioritised defence and security. Poland leads with €8 billion reallocated, with a strong focus on defence. This reflects both a strategic choice and the geographic reality of being an Eastern Border Region. Italy reallocated more than €7 billion. Spain redirected €3.2 billion — €2.1 billion to competitiveness and €435 million to defence. Portugal redirected €2.5 billion. Germany and Greece reallocated almost €2 billion. These examples show how Cohesion Policy can adapt quickly to new priorities while remaining firmly anchored in territorial development. I also want to underline how quickly this was done. Timing is very important. In April 2025, the Commission proposed the mid-term review. By September 2025, the Council and Parliament had adopted the legislation through an urgent procedure. By December 2025, Member States had submitted their programme amendments. And in the following four months, the Commission worked with great dedication to process hundreds of amendments — allowing projects to start now. Let me underline the method — this is perhaps the most important message today. Dialogue. Before launching this initiative I met ministers, regional presidents, mayors, the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions. Together we identified the five priorities. And the results speak for themselves. Three elements in the regulation made the difference: Voluntariness — Member States and regions decided how to reallocate resources, reflecting their specific needs. Flexibility — additional pre-financing, higher co-financing rates and longer eligibility periods, with special attention to Eastern Border Regions. Simplification — including easier rules for investment in large enterprises across more regions, to boost development. This is the first step in what we call the modernisation of Cohesion Policy. A step worth €34 billion in real investment. And it is not the end. This experience has taught us something important: This is the right path for Cohesion Policy. The method works. The flexibility works. Member States and regions should continue to make full use of these flexibilities to increase the impact and absorption of Cohesion Funds until the end of the current budget cycle. Later today I will present these results to the European Parliament to continue this dialogue. Cohesion Policy has delivered. It has shown that it can adapt, respond to new realities and do so with the trust and ownership of our partners in Member States and regions. Thank you. ***** Executive Vice-President Mînzatu I will start by congratulating Raffaele, Executive Vice-President Fitto, for his strategic coordination of the whole midterm review process, for his vision in this exercise. We work together because the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) not only supports our European social policies, but it is part of the cohesion package and vision overall. I think that at the end of this process the cohesion policy is stronger, because it shows clearly that it is a tool through which the European Union and its member states can respond with agility, timely to the new priorities, those that were mentioned by my colleague, the five main priorities looking at competitiveness, looking at defence, looking at housing, looking at water resilience, looking at energy. And this has been done in close cooperation with member states. On the ESF side, it's €3.3 billion that have been reallocated to these new five priorities, and it is an important number. We have two out of the five priorities that are of interest: skills and education investments with ESF are focusing on competitiveness and on defence and civil preparedness. So overall this is the mapping, I would say, of the reprogramming of the ESF amounts. We have also champions, of course, countries that chose to reallocate more towards these topics. Italy is the country that reallocated most of the ESF to the new priorities. Romania as well, Greece and Poland, these are the top four. And this is important. In concrete terms, this money will be quickly transformed into training programmes for skills in AI. We have very concrete examples in companies for education, for civil preparedness. We were discussing a bit earlier about wildfire risk management and about awareness and education of population in cases of wildfire. It's preparedness. This is also part of the whole concept in the midterm review reallocation process. Skills for jobs that are relevant for the defence industry would be and will be financed through this money, obviously. A number of interventions that mean supporting jobs for the clean tech sector, so supporting the overall industrial and security priorities with investment in people, in human capital. It is important to mention that while the ESF is reallocating resources towards these new priorities, particularly competitiveness, strategic technologies, defence, and civil preparedness, the midterm review showed that also member states reinforced their allocation for also the classic, the pure social needs. There is an increase in investments in fighting child poverty, in social inclusion, social protection, which is the core of the ESF intervention. Final message from my side is that we are showing that the cohesion policy, which is a classic policy, which is a solid policy, is absolutely fit for the challenges of the present; that a strong cohesion policy is essential so that we can invest in the strategic needs of our Europe; and that investing in people strategically delivers in the end what we need so that we support our industries, whether it's technology, whether it's AI, whether it's defence, whether it's cybersecurity or other such examples. Many thanks for the good cooperation, and I think it is a blueprint for how we will continue to work with our member states, with our regions towards implementing our EU funds. SPEECH/26/714 Press contacts: Maciej BERESTECKI (+32 2 29 66483) Isabel ARRIAGA-E-CUNHA (+32 2 29 52117) General public inquiries: Europe Direct by phone 00 800 67 89 10 11 or by email
Speech Brief