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European Court of Auditors

Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE)

European Court of Auditors. Special report 28/2022: Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency (SURE) | OJ C 477/06, 15.12.2022 ​​The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic put millions of jobs at risk. Against this background, the EU put in place a temporary instrument, SURE (Support to mitigate Unemployment Risks in an Emergency). SURE […]

Synergies between Horizon 2020 and European Structural and Investment Funds

Special report 23/2022: ‘Synergies between Horizon 2020 and European Structural and Investment Funds – Not yet used to full potential’ According to the 2014-2020 legal frameworks of the main EU programmes supporting research and innovation (Horizon 2020 and the European Structural and Investments Funds), the Commission and national authorities are legally required to establish synergies […]

LEADER and community-led local development facilitates local engagement

European Court of Auditors. Special Report 10/2022: LEADER and community-led local development facilitates local engagement but additional benefits still not sufficiently demonstrated (OJ C 265/04, 11.7.2022)  LEADER is the EU’s participatory and bottom-up approach to involve local communities in project development and decision-making processes. It involves extra costs and risks compared to mainstream (top-down) EU […]

Measures to widen participation in Horizon 2020

European Court of Auditors. Special report 15/2022. Measures to widen participation in Horizon 2020 were well designed but sustainable change will mostly depend on efforts by national authorities (OJ C 236/06, 20.6.2022) To tackle the innovation divide, Horizon 2020 introduced specific widening measures to support Member States lagging behind in research and innovation. We assessed […]

ERDF support for SME competitiveness

European Court of Auditors. Special report 08/2022: ERDF support for SME competitiveness - Design weaknesses decrease effectiveness of funding (OJ C 218/04, 2.6.2022)  We assessed whether the European Regional Development Fund helped improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the period 2014-2020. We found that Member States aimed at funding a large […]

SME internationalisation instruments

European Court of Auditors Special Report 7/2022. Special report 07/2022: SME internationalisation instruments - A large number of support actions but not fully coherent or coordinated.A large number of support actions but not fully coherent or coordinated (Official Journal C 201/05, 18.5.2022)We assessed whether the EU policy for SME internationalisation is supported by a coherent […]