EU FUNDS

Regional Assistance

Cohesion Fund

Cohesion Fund

The Cohesion Fund is a structural instrument that helps the less developed Member States to reduce economic and social disparities and to stabilise their economies. The assistance is focused to cover major transport and environmental protection infrastructures.

The Cohesion Fund supports the following types of projects:

a) Environment projects helping to achieve the objectives of the EC treaty and in particular projects in line with the priorities conferred on Community Environmental policy by the relevant Environment and Sustainable Development action plans.

The Fund gives priority to drinking-water supply, treatment of wastewater and disposal of solid waste. Reforestation, erosion control and nature conservation measures are also eligible.

In this context, the Fund may also intervene in areas related to sustainable development which clearly present environmental benefits, namely energy efficiency and renewable energy and, in the transport sector outside the trans-European networks, rail, river and sea transport, intermodal transport systems and their interoperability, management of road, sea and air traffic, clean urban transport and public transport.

b) Transport infrastructure projects establishing or developing transport infrastructure as identified in the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) guidelines (railways, road traffic, inland waterways, civil air transport, etc.).

The priority measures concern:

The eligible countries for Cohesion Fund are the least prosperous Member States of the Union whose gross national product (GNP) per capita is below 90% of the EU-average. This currently includes the 12 new Member States as well as Greece and Portugal.

Regional Policy- Info Regio