This online course will include discussion of the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative as it relates to Cohesion Policy. We will look at the new emergency Amending Regulations. We will consider how the remaining €37 billion budget of 2014-2020 can be used for emergency health and economic development measures – supporting the health sector and the supply chain, SMEs, labour markets, research, development and technologies.

The progress of current programmes and projects will be severely impacted in most Member States. What will happen to delayed projects? Payment claims? Output targets and the Performance Framework? We will attempt to draw together experiences from around the EU.

We will also try to assess how the health emergency might impact on new programmes.

New Operational Programmes for 2021-2027 are being prepared and negotiated. How will you achieve what you need to achieve in your new programmes? What do the new draft Regulations say about programming, the selection of priorities, financial planning and the financial management of programmes?

This online course will address these questions and examine the draft new 2021-2027 regulations. We will make extensive use of the new OP templates. We will see how the draft regulations attempt to simplify rules, add flexibility to programmes, generate synergies between policies and instruments, and maximise the impact of funding.

Key elements for your new programmes include:

• priority setting, Country-specific recommendations, Country Reports
• planning, new conditionalities, engaging stakeholders
• the financial tables, financial planning, flexibility
• monitoring changes and real-time reporting
• preparing the new Performance Framework; designing programme-specific indicators
• simplifying management verifications, risk management
• choices for simplified cost options and audit checks for SCOs
• highlights of the new 460/2020 Regulation (and further), on the COVID-19 Response