Considerations on COM(2025)164 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2021/1057 establishing the European Social Fund + (ESF+) as regards specific measures to address strategic challenges - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(2025)164 - Amendment of Regulation (EU) 2021/1057 establishing the European Social Fund + (ESF+) as regards specific measures to ... |
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| document | COM(2025)164  |
| date | April 1, 2025 |
(2) The White paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030 5 paves the way for a true European defence union, including by suggesting to Member States to heavily invest into defence and the defence industry. In that regard, the Communication from the Commission - the Union of Skills of 5 March 2025 6 (‘the Union of Skills Communication’) sets out actions to address skills gaps and shortages in the Union, also through the Pact for Skills Initiative referred to in that Communication, and its large-scale partnerships, including one on the defence ecosystem. Therefore, it is appropriate to include incentives for the ESF+ established by Regulation (EU) 2021/1057 of the European Parliament and of the Council 7 to facilitate the development of skills in the defence industry.
(3) It is already possible to support the adaptation of workers, entrepreneurs and enterprises to change under the ESF+. In line with the decarbonisation measures proposed by the Communication from the Commission – the Clean Industrial Deal: A joint roadmap for competitiveness and decarbonisation of 26 February 2025 8 and to further facilitate industrial adjustment linked to the decarbonisation of production processes and products, in the context of the objective of providing lifelong opportunities to regularly upskill and reskill people, as set out in the Union of Skills Communication, including through a newly proposed Skills Guarantee, the ESF+ should facilitate the skilling, job maintenance and job creation throughout the decarbonisation process by providing flexibilities to implementation.
(4) It is already possible, under ESF+, to support investments contributing to the objectives of the ‘Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform’ (STEP) established by Regulation (EU) 2024/795 of the European Parliament and of the Council 9 which aims to strengthen the Union’s technological leadership. In order to further incentivise investments from the ESF+ in those critical fields, the possibility for Member States to receive a higher pre-financing for related programme amendments should be extended.
(5) In order to enable Member States to carry out a meaningful reprogramming and focus resources on strategic Union priorities set out in recitals 2, 3 and 4 without causing further delays in implementation, it is appropriate to provide for further flexibilities. The mid-term review should serve as an opportunity to address emerging strategic challenges and new priorities therefore, Member States should benefit from additional time to complete the assessment of the outcome of the mid-term review and the submission of related programme amendments
(6) In order to accelerate the implementation of cohesion policy programmes and alleviate the pressure on national budgets and to inject the necessary liquidity for the implementation of key investments, an additional one-off pre-financing from the ESF+ should be paid for programmes. Because of the adverse impact of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the pre-financing percentage should be further increased for certain programmes covering one or more NUTS2 regions bordering Russia, Belarus or Ukraine. In order to incentivise the re-programming towards key priorities in the context of the mid-term review, the additional pre-financing should only be available where a certain threshold for the reallocation of financial resources to specific crucial priorities is reached.
(7) Furthermore, to take account of the time needed to refocus investments and to allow best use of available resources, the deadlines for the eligibility of expenditure and the decommitment rules should be adjusted for programmes carrying out a reallocation of resources to strategic priorities.
(8) It should also be possible to apply a maximum co-financing rate of up to 100% to priorities in programmes covering one or more NUTS2 regions bordering Russia, Belarus or Ukraine, given the adverse impact of the Russian aggression on those regions.
(9) Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely to address strategic challenges, refocus investments on critical new priorities and simplify and accelerate policy delivery, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States but can rather be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective.
(10) Regulation (EU) 2021/1057 should therefore be amended accordingly.
(11) [Given the urgent need to enable crucial investments in skills in the defence industry as well as in adaptation to change linked to decarbonisation in the context of pressing strategic geopolitical challenges, this Regulation should enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union,]