The Czech Republic gained additional 900 million EURO in the Cohesion Policy

For the first time in history, the common EU resources are to fall compared to the previous budgetary period, which was supported by the Czech Republic with regard to the amount of its own contributions to the EU budget. Due to the overall reduction in the EU budgetary framework, the Czech Republic will save about 1.2 billion EURO on the contributions to the common treasury during the new period. This is approximately the same amount, which should be contributed by the Czech Republic towards the annual EU budget every year during the period 2014-2020.

Moreover, the Czech delegation also achieved an additional increase in the cohesion allocation for the Czech Republic by the amount of 900 million EURO compared to the previous proposal. Within the cohesion policy, Czech and Moravian regions will be able to gain a total amount of 20.5 billion EURO (over 517 billion CZK) counted in 2011 prices. Thus the Czech Republic has reached the fourth place among the twenty-seven countries, in the amount of cohesion policy means per capita.

From the Czech point of view, it is also important that eventually an agreement was reached on the eligibility of VAT expenditure. Thus the EU funds will reimburse the price including VAT, contrary to the original proposal. The change will mean a positive difference in the amount of 2.8 billion EURO for the Czech budget.