According to the newspaper The Financial Times (FT), the EU Commission will contact member states in the coming weeks to explain its more flexible view on regional support.
For example, EU funds can be used to strengthen roads and bridges and boost production of weapons and ammunition. However, using regional support for pure arms purchases will not be possible.
The idea is that EU funds can be used militarily as long as they contribute to "the general mission of improving regional development", says a Commission spokesperson to FT.
In my region, there is a training area that needs to be connected to an airfield, says Olgierd Geblewicz from Polish West Pomerania to the newspaper as an example of what can be supported.
In total, there are almost 4,000 billion Swedish kronor in regional support for the budget period 2021-27. However, many EU countries have so far only used a small part of their funds, as they have instead chosen to focus on distributing EU's special coronavirus support created to boost the economy after the pandemic.
