This afternoon’s Politics Show reports that Wales’ four MEPs fear that the country could lose out on more than £1bn of European funding, leading to jobs and services to be cut.
They fear that with the enlargement of the European Union and the inclusion of countries like Bulgaria and Romania, Wales is no longer among the very poorest regions and is likely to miss out on the next round of so-called convergence funding.
Labour MEP, Derek Vaughan said losing the funding would have terrible consequences.
“The worst case scenario is that Wales gets nothing at all and therefore we will lose £1.5bn and the many many projects right across Wales who are currently benefiting from convergence funding will just stop being funded,” he said.
“Those projects could go out of existence, the services will go and people could lose their jobs. We’ve got to stop that happening.”
The money from the European Regional Development Fund is awarded to countries whose GDP is less than 75% of the EU’s average.
In recent years the average has come down with the admission of some eastern European countries.
In truth this has been on the cards for some time. It will still be a major blow to the Welsh economy. It would not be so bad though if the billions that have already been spent had actually made any impact on raising the Welsh GDP.
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