Yet more unspent money to be found for Ukrainian refugees

"In addition to using unspent money from the EU’s cohesion funds from previous years, the EU should also channel unused money from the current 2022 budget that would otherwise be lost due to delays, to aid Ukrainian refugees", said Andrey Novakov MEP, EPP Group Spokesman on Regional Development.

The European Parliament will approve later today the repurposing of several billion unspent Euros from the 2014-2020 budget for the Cohesion’s Action for Refugees in Europe (CARE) Programme.

"Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the EPP Group has called for these funds from 2014-2020 to be urgently repurposed to help Member States welcome and care for people fleeing the devastating war. Today’s decision is very welcome. CARE funding will be a vital resource to enable countries to respond to some of their immediate, basic needs. But more can be done - more unspent money can be mobilised", underlined Novakov, who is also Chair of the EPP Group's Cohesion Monitoring Group.

Novakov insisted that the EU should continue to examine more ways to redirect unused cohesion funds to support countries receiving refugees from Ukraine. In recent months, he had already pointed out that some Member States were struggling to use their cohesion fund allocations as they raced to prioritise accessing the Coronavirus Recovery Fund.

"We are glad to see that for CARE, the European Commission took into consideration our call for 100 percent EU co-financing and retroactive eligibility as of 24 February. This makes it much easier for EU Member States to use the money. But we need to go even further. The EU should also use cohesion funding from 2022 that would otherwise be lost due to delays in the start of the 2021-2027 programmes. Funds in need are funds indeed", concluded Novakov.

Aside from the CARE Programme, Member States helping Ukrainian refugees can now also seek funding from the REACT-EU Programme, the European Regional Development Fund and from the European Social Fund.