Belgium, Italy and Luxembourg will receive an additional €433.79 million under REACT-EU to support people fleeing Russia's aggression against Ukraine, employment and the healthcare sector.
- 15 July 2022
In Belgium, €33.4 million from the European Social Fund (ESF) will enhance guidance, counselling and employment support. The objective is to integrate in the job market refugees from Ukraine and vulnerable jobseekers that lost their job or are in precarious employment conditions after the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing in particular on digital skills development.
In Luxembourg, the Fund for Aid to the Most Deprived will receive €390,000 to deliver more food aid to people in need. It will allow Luxembourg to continue responding not only to the current needs of households in precarious situations, but also to higher needs and new demands in food delivery caused by the social consequences of the pandemic.
In Italy, €136 million will be added to the operational programme ‘Governance and institutional capacity' to help alleviate pressure on the country's health system, to contribute to hiring new public healthcare workers and to cover the costs of extra hours worked by 23,200 doctors and other healthcare personnel during the pandemic. Moreover, €264 million will be used for the purchase of doses of vaccines against COVID-19.
The 2021 tranche of REACT-EU had already allocated €40 billion to help Member States recovering from the pandemic, investing in digital and green transition and now hosting and integrating people fleeing the war in Ukraine. The Commission has also paid €3.5 billion of pre-financing payments to Member States under REACT-EU since March 2022.
The Commission also recently presented the FAST-CARE proposal to ensure that pre-financing payments are increased by an additional €3.5 billion to be paid in 2022 and 2023.