Important legal notice. In the legislative framework for the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund for the β programming period was finalised. After the new financial perspectives were agreed on 17 December , the new cohesion policy package was adopted by the Council on 11 July , followed by adoption of the Community strategic guidelines on 6 October and, finally, of the Commission implementing regulation on 8 December This requires an effective complementarity between the co-financed actions by all the financial instruments concerned Cohesion, Rural Development and Fisheries policies.
In line with the renewed Lisbon strategy, cohesion policy should focus to a greater extent on knowledge, research and innovation and human capital, pursue the objective of sustainable development, boost synergies between the economic, social and environmental dimensions, pursue the objective of equality between men and women and prevent any discrimination on grounds of gender, race or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation at all stages of preparation and implementation of programmes and projects.
Operational programmes co-financed under the cohesion policy should seek to target resources on the following three main priorities:. A series of reforms relating to management of the operational programmes have been introduced for In terms of the delivery system, legislation has been streamlined and rules simplified for managing cohesion policy.
In particular there is:. There is now a single Commission implementing regulation for the programming period, which replaces 10 existing regulations for the programming period. The rules for management of programmes financed by the Cohesion Fund have been aligned with those of the Structural Funds.
The fact that there will now be only one set of rules will make management of the Funds easier and less costly for Member States. Member States will be able to use national eligibility rules rather than European eligibility rules in addition to national eligibility rules, thus greatly simplifying project management for Member States.
