Council facilitates access to European Social Fund

Summary:

The Council today (5.5.09) adopted a regulation facilitating access to grants co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) in order to mitigate the social impact of the financial crisis. The main objective of the new regulation is to simplify the management, administration and control of ESF operations by simplifying the justification of indirect costs (i.e. costs which are not directly linked to the project, but which are necessary for its implementation such as phone or electricity costs) and reducing the workload and number of supporting documents required to justify expenditure.