Direct EU Funds in the Visegrád Group

Abstract

This study examines the absorption of direct European Union (EU) funding by the Visegrád Group (V4) countries – Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – during the 2021–2023 period. Employing a mixed-quantitative analysis, data were sourced from the Financial Transparency System of the European Commission. The focus is on twenty-five key EU programmes, including Horizon, LIFE, Digital Europe Programme (DEP), EU4Health, European Defence Fund (EDF), Euratom, Military Mobility, Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), Erasmus+, Creative, Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV), Innovation Fund, Single Market Programme. The study reveals that 20 years after their accession to the EU, the V4 countries still receive one third of the EU average in direct EU funding. In absolute terms, their share has been 4.86% over the last three years, while their population represents 13.98% of the EU population. This means that the existing distribution of directly managed EU funds reinforces regional and national disparities and does not promote cohesion. Given the fact that the share, the number and scope of directly managed EU funds are steadily increasing and the share of the Cohesion Fund, which is jointly managed by the Commission and the Member States, is expected to decrease in the future, mainstreaming cohesion in the programming of EU direct funds will be crucial.