The Phasing-in Objective of the Structural Funds, included in Convergence and Employment, covers those regions that would have been below 75% of the EU-15 average and that have exceeded this percentage owing to the fall in the average after the entrance of the 12 new countries. For this reason these regions are known as those that have ceased to belong to the convergence objective because of the "statistical effect". 4.1% of Structural Funds credits (that is, 12,521 million euros) will be assigned to these regions in the period 2007-2013.
Spain will receive Phasing-Out Objective resources for an amount of 1,419 million euros (11.3% of the total assigned to this Objective) between 2007 and 2013. Four regions of Spain (Asturias, Murcia, Ceuta and Melilla) benefit from these resources.