The European Commission published a report in which shows an overview of how EU Structural Funds are working in member states. According to this report, these funds have already led to progress and improvement for many citizens, such as that 1.9 million more people now have broadband access; or 2.6 million more people are served by water supply, 5.7 million more by waste water projects.

The ‘Strategic Report’ on the implementation of 2007-2013 Cohesion Policy programmes published by the European Commission pulls together available information from member states, up to end-2011 in most cases. The Commission published in this report some examples of the results that have already led to progress and improvement for many citizens. As examples, the Commission reported that there are 460 km of TEN-T roads and 334 km of TEN-T rail; and 2.4 million people assisted by the European Social Fund found a new job. In March 2012, the Commission presented the Common Strategic Framework, one programming tool for all structural funds.

Furthermore, the report also outlined that innovation and small business are receiving a huge boost from cohesion policy investments with many more in the pipeline. So far, 53,240 RTD projects and 16,000 business-research projects received investment and 53,160 start-ups have been supported.

As funds are utilised and projects get off the ground, the report documents a significant increase in the number of people supported in in the area of employment from around 10 million annually before 2010 to some 15 million on an annual basis since then; and a significant acceleration of results since 2010 in the area of support for SMEs: Almost 400,000 jobs created (half of these in 2010/11) including 15,600 research jobs and 167,000 jobs in SMEs.