Support for local communities and local authorities in the coronavirus crisis

Subject: Support for local communities and local authorities in the coronavirus crisis

The coronavirus crisis has had a major impact all over Europe and local authorities have faced a host of problems when trying to provide high quality healthcare and public services. Many communities have taken action themselves in the absence of national-level plans or measures, and for want of the appropriate instruments have spent much of the resources available to them.

In these circumstances, direct mechanisms enabling local authorities to quickly call on EU funding – e.g. to purchase test equipment and PPE for medical staff and to upgrade medical units – could prove extremely useful.

Since many local authorities have been in need of support and will continue to need support, what can the Commission do to bolster their capacities for tackling emergencies such as this?

Will the Commission consider creating a special fund for addressing this crisis which can be accessed quickly and directly by local authorities to meet their medical and medical infrastructure needs?

Answer given by Ms Ferreira on behalf of the European Commission

(7 August 2020)

As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Commission has i.a. launched two packages of measures: the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative (CRII) and the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative Plus (CRII+).

These measures mobilised currently available EU Funds to flexibly respond to the rapidly emerging needs in the most exposed sectors, such as healthcare, to help the most affected territories in Member States and their citizens. Cohesion policy programmes contributed to the equipment of health services with adequate supplies to respond to the current situation, including medicine, respirators, masks, sanitizers, and protective gear.

Additionally, EUR 300 million for the rescEU-medical equipment capacity and EUR 2.7 billion directly to the European Union's Emergency Support Instrument was secured in the 2020 budget.

On 21 July 2020, the European Council agreed the recovery instrument Next Generation EU and targeted reinforcements to the long-term EU budget for 2021-2027.

This will allow inter alia further improving capabilities to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from health emergencies. It will include investments in infrastructure, equipment and supplies that are necessary to ensure that health systems are resilient.

Additional resources will be available i.e. under the cohesion policy programmes in the 2014-2020 programming period (REACT- EU), an increased Just Transition Fund, the Recovery and Resilience Facility and the new Health Programme (EU4Health).

Local authorities will benefit from those additional resources — directly or indirectly, depending on the rules governing different EU instruments and on the specific institutional arrangements in each Member State.