Hundreds of millions of pounds of European regeneration funding already allocated to Merseyside could be stopped in the wake of Brexit , it is feared.
The Government is expected to clarify within the next few days whether or not the region will continue to receive £190m worth of Brussels’ cash as part of the 2014 to 2020 EU investment programme.
The Government announcement, expected later this week, will cover a total of £3bn of European investment earmarked for the whole of the UK.
Some newspaper reports have suggested that the British Government has already suspended payments from the European Development Fund (ERDF) pending the announcement.
The EU had agreed to invest its cash before the referendum took place, but it is now expected that the UK will have left the EU before the end of the programme, raising the prospect that at least some of that money will have to be sent back to Brussels.
Also, Europe’s funding rules mean that national governments are required to match Brussels’ spending with their own cash.
It is believed that the UK Government may want to withhold this cash to balance its own books.
