***** UPDATE: 3/9/2019 *****
With the release of the June 2019 data on "finances implemented" the Commission also makes a correction to the way it compares planned finances with decided finances (selected) for cohesion policy funds. The total planned amounts include programmes (or priorities) that are expressed either in 1) in public cost only, or 2) in total cost (i.e. including private financing). Some of the programmes expressed in public cost were reporting in finances implemented in "total costs of decided (selected) operations (including private cost)" and in "public cost of decided operations". To more accurately reflect the correct selection rate the Commission now takes only the public cost decided for those "public cost" programmes (or priorities). The correction is applied to all new data published and retroactively. The effect is to reduce the cohesion policy selection rate by -0.7% points for end 2018. The change mainly affects ERDF and programmes in following Member States - BE, BG, IT, MT, PT and RO.
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This data set provides time series information on the financial implementation on the ground of the 530+ ESI Funded programmes. The data is cumulative, i.e. 2016 values included the finances implemented for 2015. Therefore the value for different years **MUST NOT BE AGGREGATED**

The financial implementation data is disaggregated by fund, programme, priority axis, thematic objective and category of regions (where available). The data is provided by the managing authorities of the 530+ programmes on at least an annual basis. For some funds the data is provided more regularly:

For Cohesion Policy funds (ERDF-ESF-YEI-Cohesion Fund) updates are received 3 times a year – on 31 January, 31 July and 31 October - covering cumulative finances implemented to the end of the month preceding submission. After submission the data is published on the platform within 4-6 weeks;
For EAFRD the data on the value of selected projects is reported once a year on 30 June covering cumulative selection up until the previous December; the data on expenditure is taken from the certified expenditure reported quarterly;
For EMFF the data on the value of selected projects and spending is reported once a year on 31 May, and covers the period until the previous December

A detailed description of all the variables in the dataset is provided in the metadata file ESIF_Implemented Finance_Data_Description_of_Dataset_20161219.xlsx (in Attachments below).

Further details on the "finances implemented" data and the other forms of are provided also in the "About" section providing FAQs accessible from the platform - http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/faq/about_open_data/#8