Realism, hard work needed on 2014-2020 EU funds - Fitto

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 23 - There needs to be an "acceleration" in spending at regional level on Cohesion Policy actions to be funded in the 2014-2020 programming cycle in order not to lose European Union funding, European Affairs Minister Raffaele Fitto said on Saturday.
    "All the spending percentages for 2014-20 programming need to be checked; we need to complete on December 31 for the European share," said Fitto.
    "In the next two to three months there will be an acceleration in all the regions," he added.
    Fitto said for the entire programming period 126 billion in European and national funds had to be spent.
    "In the first months of this year we verified that spending stood at 34%. There is a system problem that we are trying to resolve," said the minister.
    "Let us be realistic, the goal is not to lose a single euro.
    This can be achieved by working hard," he added. (ANSA).