A review of the past year, in Europe, Italy, and for the Guide to EU Projects and Funding: year-end balance sheets and a vision for 2025
December 2024: an important moment for Europe
The end of this year represents an important moment, both for Europe and for European projects. On December 1, the European Commission’s new College of Commissioners, led for a second five-year term by President Ursula von der Leyen, began its new mandate. Against a backdrop of rising international tensions, adding to economic and social, environmental and climate challenges, the Commission that will accompany Europe and European projects in the five-year period 2024-2029 has set itself seven strategic priorities:
- A new plan for Europe’s sustainable prosperity and competitiveness (economic growth, business, innovation, competitiveness, prosperity and equity);
- A new era for European defense and security (response to security and defense challenges, preparedness, and crisis management);
- Supporting people and strengthening European societies and social model (equity and social solidarity and equal opportunities for all);
- Maintaining the quality of life: food security, water and nature (competitive and resilient food and agriculture system, biodiversity preservation and climate change preparedness);
- Protect our democracy, defend our values (citizens at the heart of European democracy and future of the Union);
- Global Europe: leveraging Europe’s strength and partnerships (neighborhood and partnerships to address global challenges and promote peace and economic stability);
- Achieve goals together and prepare the Union for the future (a modern, strengthened EU budget and an ambitious reform agenda).
This new definition of the European Commission’s strategic priorities will also affect funds and programs. Indeed, we are in the middle of the 2021-2027 programming cycle and this is the time when a mid-term evaluation is being carried out, in order to better manage the time and funds left in the second half of the seven-year period; and it is also the time when preparatory work for the new seven-year programming period for the 2028-2034 funds begins. Already at the end of February, the mid-term amendments to the 2021-2027 financial framework were approved, a consequence of a seven-year period characterized by unforeseen and major new challenges (Covid-19, Russian invasion of Ukraine, growing international instability) and their economic and social repercussions. The amendments introduce new reserve margins and flexibility on some existing instruments into the financial framework, establish a new Strategic Technologies Platform for Europe (STEP, supporting critical and emerging strategic technologies and their supply chains), and introduce a new instrument dedicated to Ukraine.
Also during this period, Mid-Term Reviews of major European programs are underway, and short summaries(Performance Statements) reporting their main results are already available: Horizon Europe: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement Digital Europe: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement Single Market Program: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement EU4Health: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement Erasmus+: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement
Creative Europe: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement LIFE: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement ERDF: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement ESF+: Mid-Term Review | Performance Statement We also report the publication of more specific analysis documents on Horizon Europe, which we have already discussed here.
Budget 2024 European projects on Italian local organisations: the ASviS report
It’s budget time for Italian territories as well: the 2024 report of the Italian Association for Sustainable Development (ASviS) was published a few days ago, which maps theprogress of Italian local organisations (Regions, Provinces and Metropolitan Cities) with respect to the development indicators recognized by the international community (Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030). The “territorialization” of the SDGs is also the subject of a supporting platform and an interesting OECD report published in March. ASviS’s “Local Organisations 2024 Report” (available in various formats: pdf report , pdf summary, summary article, interactive fact sheets, video and presentation event ) shows a varied but not particularly rosy picture, with delays in many regions and municipalities in achieving the goals, and a substantial slice of goals for which there has even been a shift away from them in the 2010-2023 period.
See the tabs of: Abruzzo | Basilicata | P.A. Bolzano | Calabria | Campania | Emilia-Romagna | Friuli-Venezia Giulia | Lazio | Liguria | Lombardy | Marche | Molise | Piedmont | Puglia | Sardinia | Sicily | Tuscany | P.A. Trento | Umbria | Aosta Valley | Veneto
European funds and the absorption capacities of national, regional, and local authorities are a key pillar in reviving and responding to this challenge. Resuming ASviS’ comments with respect to the data that emerged from the analysis:
“Italy’s dramatic delays on the 17 SDGs in Regions, Autonomous Provinces and Metropolitan Cities can be recovered provided we seriously focus on the territorial dimension of the 2030 Agenda. It is necessary to capitalize on the virtuous experiences emerging from the local organisations, which ASviS collects and enhances in today’s Report, and to properly use the available resources, starting with the 75 billion euros allocated to Italy by the Partnership Agreement with the EU, of which only 12 percent has been committed so far.”
This analysis comforts the path taken by the Guide to EU Projects and Funding, aimed at improving the capacity to implement good projects, at all levels, in our local organisations.
Guide to EU Projects and Funding: 10 years of content, getting closer
In this context, next year the Guide to EU Projects and Funding will celebrate its 10 years of activity: 10 years in which it has produced hundreds of pages of articles, training and in-depth analysis on everything related to EU projects; 10 years in which its partnership, its users and the tools it offers have regularly grown; 10 years in which it has promoted the idea that Europe can and should be a key development engine for our local organisations. This year we have continued to enrich the contents of the Guide and have launched a presentation activity in various local organisations in Italy, in collaboration with our partners and organizations specializing in various sectors. In fact, it is our intention to get closer to those who use the Guide, those who want to learn about European projects and those who implement them, with an increasing presence and contribution to moments of training, awareness and in-depth analysis. It is also our intention to talk even more with those who work on European projects, with new interviews and with their involvement on insights that can give greater depth and thematic specificity to our articles. It is in this spirit that we are proposing a video presentation of the Guide made for Assifero, the association that brings together Italian foundations and philanthropic entities: family foundations, business foundations, community foundations and other philanthropic entities, which provide a long history, expertise and financial resources for the development of our country. We will propose, among the next articles, interviews with entities and foundations that work for the development of local organisations (and often “difficult” territories) with careful animation and involvement on European initiatives and projects. In the same spirit, we have started an in-depth study dedicated to municipalities and small Local Authorities, and their ability to bring the European experience and European projects directly to the heart of citizens’ daily lives. We have already dedicated three articles to them and presented various tools dedicated to them: discover them here, here and here. We have in store new tools, guides, insights and interviews, which we will publish in the coming months. Meanwhile, we presented the Guide-and listened to many very interesting experiences-at theANCI National Assembly on November 21. European projects are stories and roads that are traveled together, and in its own small way, our Guide wants to make a contribution and an example.
