The ICF Group participates in European business development programmes to provide financing for companies with operational headquarters in Catalonia.
The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is a European Union (EU) structural fund designed to redress regional imbalances and enhance economic, social and territorial cohesion. The investments financed by the ERDF promote a smarter, greener, more connected, more social and more citizen-friendly Europe while also fostering internal territorial cooperation between regions and countries.
At present, as part of the ERDF Operational Programme 2014-2020 the ICF and the European Union are making available to companies a loan facility with preferential conditions for working capital or investment under the trade name ICF Eurocrèdit to invest in growth and jobs.
The ERDF of Catalonia 2021-2027 follows a shared management model: both the State and the Government of Catalonia manage the financing of the programme jointly with the European Commission.
To receive ERDF grants, the operations proposed for programming must be framed in one of the sectoral plans, or strategies of the Government of the Generalitat de Catalunya, which have been approved as selection frameworks for the Programme.
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In the national and international context, the evaluation of the design of public policies is becoming progressively more important.
Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down common provisions on the European Structural and Investment Funds lays down the regulatory framework and requirements for the evaluation of programmes financed by the ERDF.
The Regulation establishes that for the 2021-2027 ERDF programmes, a mid-term evaluation must be submitted before 31 March 2025 and an impact evaluation before 30 June 2029. Likewise, evaluations must be carried out in relation to one or more of the following criteria: effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and added value, with the aim of improving the quality of the design and execution of the programmes. It also establishes the obligation to submit an evaluation plan that includes all the aforementioned evaluations.
In addition, the Regulation determines that in addition to state and regional authorities, local and urban public authorities, economic and social agents, relevant bodies representing civil society and, where appropriate, research organisations and universities must be involved in the task of evaluating programmes.
In this context, the Ministry of Finance, as the Managing Authority of all programmes financed by the ERDF in Spain, has prepared the Common Programme Evaluation Plan, which includes a set of evaluations that will be carried out at the state level on issues that affect all communities across the board.
Taking into account the aforementioned regulatory requirements, the Directorate General for European Funds and State Aid of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, as the intermediate body of the ERDF Programme of Catalonia 2021-2027, has drawn up the Specific Evaluation Plan for the Catalan programme. In the design of the plan, the aim has been to guarantee the active participation of all partners, through the consultation carried out with the relevant partners of the Programme, as well as the relevance of the evaluations that are part of it.
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Improving the visibility of cohesion policy has become a top priority. Every year, European funds co-finance thousands of projects throughout Europe, constituting for the citizen the most concrete manifestation of the actions of the European Union.
For the period 2021-2027, the European Commission has a challenge: to increase the level of knowledge on the part of European citizens of the regional policy implemented through European funds.
The Directorate General for European Funds and State Aid (DGFEAE) has drawn up the Communication Manual for the ERDF Programme for Catalonia 2021-2027, which centralises and unifies in a single document the content of Regulation (EU) 2021/1060 and the various guides, manuals and guidelines prepared by the European Commission and the Programme's managing authority.
The objectives of the manual are to ensure:
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In compliance with Article 125(4)(c) of Regulation (EU) 1303/2013, the following channels are provided for reporting suspicions of fraud or irregularities in actions co-financed through the Catalonia ERDF 2014-2020 Operational Programme:
For more information on anti-fraud measures, see the following links:
The ERDF Operational Programme of Catalonia 2014-2020 is evaluated in accordance with the Specific ERDF 2014-2020 Operational Programme Evaluation Plan. This Plan sets out the criteria and procedures by which the ERDF managing authority and intermediate bodies are to measure the results and extent to which the programmes’ goals have been achieved.
The Catalonia ERDF 2014-2020 Operational Programme communication strategy has two main objectives:
Best practices of co-financed actions are the main component of the communication strategy.
All public bodies receiving ERDF funding under the Catalonia ERDF 2014-2020 Operational Programme have to submit at least one best practice each year and should seek to ensure that at least 50% of the funding is allocated to actions that can be considered best practices.
