State of play of OP negotiations and OP implementation ESF Technical Working Group Luxembourg, 2 December

I. Statistics on adoption of OPs 2 Number of ESF supported OPs adopted: By : out of which ALL 34 OPs supported by the YEI Number of ESF supported OPs to be adopted: 14 : all ES OPs

3 MEMBER STATE Total number of OPs Adopted by end of 2014 Carry-over (all adopted) To be adopted after MFF amendment Austria 11 Belgium 44 Bulgaria 312 Croatia 11 Cyprus 11 Czech Rep. 33 (adopted) Denmark 11 Estonia 11 Finland 22 France 33 Germany Greece 17 Hungary 541 (adopted) Ireland 11

4 MEMBER STATE Total number of OPs Adopted by end of 2014 Carry-over (all adopted) To be adopted after MFF amendment Italy (8 adopted) Latvia 11 Lithuania 11 Luxemburg 11 Malta 11 Netherlands 11 Poland 1789 Portugal 10 Romania 22 Slovakia 22 Slovenia 11 Spain (8 adopted) Sweden 211 (adopted) United Kingdom 642 (adopted)

II. OP Amendments 5 All OP amendments are to be examined and approved by the Monitoring Committee (Art. 110(2)(e) CPR) But not all OP amendments need to be approved by the Commission Art. 96(10) CPR lists the elements that are not approved by COM decision: e.g. the categories of intervention and their indicative breakdown, the authorities, the role of partners in implementation, monitoring and evaluation, …

III. Amendments not requiring COM approval 6 MA has to inform the Commission within 1 month of the decision to amend the OP. The decision has to mention the date of entry into force – date cannot be earlier than its adoption (Art. 96(11) CPR).  Amendment to be introduced in SFC2014

IV. Amendments requiring COM approval (1) 7 Procedure is set out in Art. 30 CPR Requests must be duly justified: what, why and impact ? Set out expected impact on achieving the OP’s specific objectives and on achieving the Europe 202O Strategy No need for an ex ante evaluation Changes in the OP to be compliant with the regulatory framework and consistent with Partnership Agreement  Letter requesting the amendment and revised OP to be introduced in SFC2014

IV. Amendments requiring COM approval (2) 8 COM may make observations within one month following submission of amended OP Member State to provide the all necessary additional information COM to adopt the amendment ASAP but no later than 3 months after the submission of the amended OP – provided all observations have been adequately taken into account. 3 month deadline is interrupted following the COM observations until receipt of an amended OP that takes into account the observations

IV. Amendments requiring COM approval (3) 9 Expenditure that becomes eligible as a result of an amendment to an OP (that has to be approved by the COM) shall only be eligible from the date of the submission of the request for amendment to the COM.

V. What if an OP amendment also requires a PA amendment ? 10 Need to submit PA and OP amendments in SFC In case the PA amendment is triggered by the OP amendment and is limited to: Selection of thematic objectives and main expected results for each of the ESI Funds Allocation of EU support to the thematic objectives for each of the ESI Funds Total indicative amount for climate change objectives List of the programmes with the indicative allocation by ESI Fund and by year  Approval of the OP will constitute approval of the PA amendments (Art. 30(2) CPR)

VI. Good practice in case MS envisage PA and OP amendments 11 Important to plan amendments, in particular in case OP amendments affect the info in the PA so as to avoid too many PA amendments. Also need to plan OP amendments and if possible to combine and consolidate them. Contact the Geographical Unit and discuss informally any amendment you consider. Advantages: COM can make its comments before the monitoring committee meeting Will facilitate adoption process as COM observations may be avoided

12 THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION