European Regional Development Fund in the context of "Northern and Western Region"

The budget of the European Union (a.k.a. The Union’s annual budget) is used to finance EU funding programmes (such as the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, Horizon Europe, or Erasmus+) and other expenditure at the European level.

The EU budget is primarily an investment budget. Representing around 2% of all EU public spending, it aims to complement national budgets. Its purpose is to implement the priorities that all EU members have agreed upon. It provides European added-value by supporting actions which, in line with the principle of subsidiarity and proportionality, can be more effective than actions taken at national, regional or local level.

A grant is a fund given by a person or organization, often a public body, charitable foundation, a specialised grant-making institution, or in some cases a business with a corporate social responsibility mission, to an individual or another entity, usually, a non-profit organisation, sometimes a business or a local government body, for a specific purpose linked to public benefit. Unlike loans, grants are not intended to be paid back. Examples include student grants, research grants, the Sovereign Grant paid by the UK Treasury to the monarch, and some European Regional Development Fund payments in the European Union.

Interreg is a series of programmes to stimulate cooperation between regions in and out of the European Union (EU), funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The first Interreg started in 1989. Interreg IV covered the period 2007–2013. Interreg V (2014–2020) covers all 27 EU member states, the EFTA countries (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein), six accession countries and 18 neighbouring countries. It has a budget of EUR 10.1 billion, which represents 2.8% of the total of the European Cohesion Policy budget. Since the non EU countries don't pay EU membership fee, they contribute directly to Interreg, not through ERDF.

West Wales and the Valleys is a UK International Territorial Level 2 statistical region covering the western areas of Wales and the South Wales Valleys. Created as part of Eurostat's Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), it was used by the European Union (EU) to deliver the European Regional Development Fund to areas of Wales, until the UK's withdrawal from the EU in 2020, after which it was mirrored onto the Office for National Statistics' International Territorial Level (ITL) geo-classification system. The remainder of Wales is part of the East Wales statistical region.