Economic Appraisal for EU-funded projects in 2021-27

About

More than 300 participants attended the webinar on Economic appraisal for EU-funded projects in 2021-27 organised in cooperation with DG REGIO on 15 December 2021.

Objectives

Economic appraisal aims to assess the extent to which an investment project contributes to overall social welfare and economic growth. Several analytical economic appraisal methods including cost-benefit analysis, cost-effectiveness, least-cost and multicriteria analysis, can be used to verify whether projects achieve their intended objectives in an effective and efficient manner. Economic appraisal can also be used to rank investment projects and could help in allocating limited available funding and resources among different investments options.

For the 2021–2027 programming period and the cohesion policy funds, the use of CBA is not a legal requirement. However, the Common Provision Regulation calls for managing authorities to ensure proper value for money for the selection of operations to be financed, with a major shift of responsibilities from the EU to Member States. In this respect, economic appraisal can be used by managing authorities as part of a wider methodology and related criteria for the selection of operations.

Economic appraisal is also increasingly relevant in other investment contexts beyond cohesion policy, including for the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and the InvestEU Fund. In terms of international financing institutions, the European Investment Bank (EIB) conducts an Economic Appraisal of projects considered for financing, which are often co-financed by various EU funds.

In recognition of the above, DG REGIO has prepared with the support of JASPERS, the preparation of an Economic Appraisal Vademecum (EAV), for possible wider voluntary use across EU funding sources in the 2021–2027 programming period. This EAV complements the 2014 CBA Guide and is based on established good practices at both EU and national levels.

This interactive webinar aimed at presenting the EAV and its relevance for the 2021–2027 programming period, with a particular focus on its potential use in the context of several EU funding sources, as well as its relation with the economic appraisal practices used by the EIB.

The webinar closed with an open discussion on the challenges for the 2021-27 period, and way to overcome them also with JASPERS advisory and capacity building support.