Minister of Investments of the Slovak Republic: Municipalities should not cry, they should be more active in drawing EU funds
Bratislava – Municipalities are average in preparing to draw EU funds, their approved project intentions are at 56% and contracting is approximately at 12%. The Minister of Investments of the Slovak Republic, Samuel Migaľ (independent), stated this on Monday in response to criticism from municipalities regarding the freezing of part of the EU funds approved by the government on Wednesday (June 18). He advised the regions to “cry less and work more,” TASR reports.
“The approved project intentions of municipalities are at 56%, applications for non-repayable financial assistance are at 32%. As for contracting, Slovak higher territorial units and municipalities are at 12%. As for drawing, I won’t even mention it, because it is absolutely catastrophic,” Migaľ stated on Monday.
He added that although he brought a material on the state of drawing EU funds to the last government meeting, which stated that the revision of EU funds and the blocking of money for the regions would not be affected, under the pressure of the mentioned arguments, he ultimately agreed with the proposal of other ministers to involve municipalities in the revision. Originally, according to Migaľ, only ministries were supposed to contribute to the revision of EU funds.
“That’s why I decided to say yes, let’s go for it, let’s all contribute to it. But my priority and my task is, after the reassessment of that part of the money that we all have to contribute to, to ensure that this money ends up in the region,” emphasized the minister.
He added that EU funds are not being taken away from municipalities, the mentioned 200 million euros are just blocked. If the preparation for drawing EU funds and contracting reaches the required level, according to Migaľ, the blocked money will be returned to the regions.
The government cabinet decided on Wednesday to temporarily block 100% flexibility for ministries in drawing EU funds. For municipalities, it is a 50% blocking. As part of this measure, the government will temporarily block 1.26 billion euros from EU funds. According to the Ministry of Investments, if the money were not redistributed, there would be a risk of it being lost. The reason for adopting the measure is, according to the Ministry of Investments, the low rate of drawing EU funds.
Municipalities consider the decision to block part of the EU funds to be unfair. They also rejected criticism regarding the slow drawing of funds. They identified the problem as delays in preparing the programming period, priority announced demand-oriented calls, or lengthy checks. The government’s decision was also criticized by the opposition. (June 23)
“The approved project intentions of municipalities are at 56%, applications for non-repayable financial assistance are at 32%. As for contracting, Slovak higher territorial units and municipalities are at 12%. As for drawing, I won’t even mention it, because it is absolutely catastrophic.” Samuel Migaľ.
