EU Funding to Calabria – Cohesion Plan

EU funding to Calabria (cohesion plan) has boosted the Italian government to render more improvements to the region. In December 2007, the European Commission approved the Calabria Regional Operational Program for 2007-2013. This program was derived from the Convergence Objective with a total estimated budget of €3 billion. Based on the context of Cohesion Policy for the period of 2007-2013, the program includes investments related directly to sustainable growth as well as jobs in line with the Gothenburg and Lisbon agendas.

It is expected that the program will lead to an added annual increase of 1.6% in the region’s GDP by 2015 as well as added annual increase of 0.3% in employment growth. Thus, it is expected that the program will create 43,500 new jobs by 2015. Female employment rates are also expected to increase to 40.2% as 16,500 net jobs for women are created.

There are nine priorities included in the Operational Program, which is expected to be achieved during the duration of the cohesion plan. These include R&D, innovation, and information society (approximate 10% of total funding); Energy (approximately 7% of total funding); Environment (approximately 12% of total funding); Quality of life and social inclusion (approximately 9% of total funding); Natural and cultural resources and sustainable tourism (approximately 12% of total funding); Networks for mobility (approximately 16% of total funding); Productive systems (approximately 14% of total funding); Cities, urban areas and territorial systems (approximately 17% of total funding); and Technical assistance and interregional cooperation (approximately 3% of total funding).