Within the European Semester exercise, the Commission has also presented recommendations to Member States on how to best use EU Cohesion policy funds to align them with the general EU economic policy guidance.

This year’s focus is on climate-neutrality by 2050. The Commission has identified the regions and sectors that are most economically and socially challenged by the transition towards a greener Europe. These areas will therefore benefit from a targeted financial support from the Just Transition Fund, which will ensure that no one is left behind in the climate-neutral transition.

Read more on Cohesion policy’s contribution to the EU Semester. 

The realised investment spending reported by those projects has risen EUR 62 billion to EUR 181 billion (more than 37% of all planned investment) in 2019. Check the cohesion policy funds’ specific details on the fund specific pages. 

In relation to the tracking of investment in climate action, the detailed thematic reporting shows that some EUR 52 billion of the EUR 56 billion of EU budget financing planned for climate action has been allocated to decided projects (92% -  up EUR 8 billion from 2018), with realised spending of EUR 18.4 billion (33% - up EUR 7.4 billion from 2018).  Check this data story for more details on progress with climate action .