The Wallon Region has taken the opportunity to reallocate €28.7 million of the EU structural cohesion funds to defence programmes, according to the European Commission.
The Commission's Vice-President for Cohesion Policy, Raffaele Fitto, is conducting field visits this Tuesday and Wednesday in the country's three regions as part of a tour of Member States.
Last week, he finalised the mid-term review of the 2021-2027 program for this policy aimed at reducing socio-economic disparities between EU territories, which accounts for nearly a third of the EU budget.
Member States have thus reallocated €34.6 billion from their structural funds (ERDF, FTJ, or ESF) to the EU's most urgent strategic priorities: competitiveness, defence and civil preparedness, affordable and sustainable housing, and resilience in the areas of water and energy connectivity.
While Brussels-Capital and Flanders opted for reallocations focused exclusively on competitiveness (18.3 million for the former, 51.8 million for the latter), Wallonia distinguished itself by diversifying its priorities: 47.5 million was redirected towards competitiveness, 28.7 million towards defence, 16.4 million towards housing, and 1.1 million towards water.
The advantages of using reallocation of funds lie in a higher pre-financing rate, a higher EU co-financing rate, and an additional year of fund eligibility. A significant portion of the reallocation towards defence concerns military mobility programs (transport infrastructure also usable in peacetime) and dual-use goods (civilian and military).
With three ERDF-ESF territorial units classified as "in transition" (provinces of Hainaut, Namur, and Liège) and one "less developed" (province of Luxembourg), the south of the country receives the largest share of cohesion funds allocated to Belgium. Rumours circulating within the Commission suggest that Liège and Namur could be removed from the "in transition" category, according to the criteria of the next programming period (2028-2034).
