Mr. Jannik Knauer:

I will start with the question on the cohesion funds and then Ms Dinkova will complement as necessary. I would like to underline one important point when it comes to the possible redirection of cohesion funds. It is at the complete discretion of member states whether to make use of this possibility.

As a Commission, we are in a situation where member states and the European Council asked us to identify additional funds that could be spent in the area of defence. Here we are looking at defence infrastructure projects and military mobility projects; we are not talking about arms. We introduced in the revision of the cohesion funds the possibility that member states could decide to use a certain percentage of unused cohesion and social funds for projects relating to defence, infrastructure and military mobility. That is the focus of this.

It is not our recommendation that member states diminish expenditure on social and cohesion projects. It is rather that money that has not been used and will, most likely, not be used before the end of this MFF - that is, within the next two years - for another priority, and that is defence. It is a way to find money that will not be used and redirect it to defence. It is the sole prerogative of member states to make use of this possibility.

There is a huge difference in the amounts of Cohesion Fund money spent in different member states. Some have already allocated most of the money until the end of this MFF, while in others there is a significant share of money that has not been allocated yet. This is primarily an opportunity for those member states which have not yet allocated funds to use them for defence purposes.