Its creation was agreed in the Maastricht Treaty and it has subsequently gone through various stages:
Council Regulation (CE)1164/94 of 16 May 1994 created the Cohesion Fund – with the antecedent of the provisional Cohesion Financial Instrument approved in March 1993 – with an allocation for the 1993-1999 period of 15,000 million ecus (of 1992); of these, in current ecus, 9,251 Mecus are for Spain, 55% of the total.
The member states that benefited from this Fund were Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece.
For the 2000-2006 period, an allocation of 18,000 million euros was approved and a number of aspects of its administration were amended, in particular the reinforcing of community policies and national controls.
As of 2004, Ireland ceased to be a beneficiary of the Fund. By contrast, May 2004 saw the incorporation of the nine new member states of the European Union as beneficiaries of the Fund: Czech Republic, Cyprus, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta and Poland.
For the new programming period of 2007-2013, its administration is amended, integrating its actions in operational programmes.
Also, not only will large transport and environmental infrastructures be able to be financed, but so will projects in the fields of energy efficiency, renewable energy and intermodal, urban and collective transport.
The total allocation for the 13 beneficiary states will be 63,000 million euros, of which Spain would get 3,250 million euros.
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