Cohesion Fund – Results of the period 1993-99

Summary:

The Cohesion Fund was set up by the European Union in 1993 to provide aid to the poorest Member States to help them to rebalance their budgets, as required to qualify for the launching of the euro. Since then four "cohesion" countries (Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland) have a received a total of €16.7 billion for the period 1993-99. This aid has gone towards financing transport infrastructure projects thereby helping to establish the trans-European networks, and to environmental projects, thus helping these countries to advance towards the objectives set by the European Union environment policy. In accordance with the objectives set in 1995, the Commission has managed to achieve a balance in the period 1993-99 between environmental projects (50.3%) and transport infrastructure projects (49.7%).