Brussels, 05/11/2009 (Agence Europe) - Speaking on Thursday 5 November at the annual conference of the Association of European Border Regions (AEBR) in Ghent (Belgium), Regional Policy Commissioner Pawe³ Samecki spoke of the work being carried out on the budget and future of cohesion policy, and the imminent coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty. He said that “we should not be distracted from careful planning for the future by the supposed implications of draft documents that have not been finalised”. With the Lisbon Treaty about to come into force, he highlighted the importance of “designing and proposing a cohesion policy that will build on the achievements we have already seen while accelerating the move towards even stronger policy orientation and focus”.
Noting the added value cohesion policy brings to the regions (through innovative approaches to eliminating barriers to growth and development, through the alignment of public and private investment towards issues of Community interest, through the sharing of best practice by means of initiatives such as Regions for Economic Change and URBACT, and through sharing benefits of public goods, for example, from research and innovation initiatives), the commissioner said that, for this contribution to continue, the new cohesion policy should focus on three main goals: facilitating growth in the poorest regions of the EU, enhancing competitiveness and employment at regional level, and fostering integration across borders. The Commission should, he said, certainly maintain the existing programming approach with its structure of Community guidelines, national referenced frameworks, operational programmes and co-financing at appropriate levels, “even if we try to improve each individual element”. “We need to have a clearer strategic dimension so that we can immediately answer the question: 'Why is cohesion policy intervening here?'” Samecki stressed the need to focus on outcomes and results, to “strengthen the sustainability of our interventions” and to “continually be improving coordination and integration of our activities”. To help with this last point, work is continuing on macro-regional strategies.
The Ghent speech complemented what Samecki said at the conference to mark the fifth anniversary of Poland's accession to the EU, in Brussels on Wednesday 4 November, in his speech on “The Cohesion Policy - Thoughts for today and tomorrow”. Referring to a recorded message from Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who made the point that the political and economic rationale of the cohesion policy was stronger now than it was 20 years ago, the commissioner said that “this is far from obvious”. “The original political vision, which gave rise to cohesion policy, is today often forgotten,” he observed, adding that “in order to sustain integration, we need, today and for the years to come, a strong development policy aimed at promoting long-term sustainable growth and prosperity in European regions”. He set out the areas where reform was needed: (1) we need to concentrate our resources on a limited number of narrowly defined core priorities, in areas such as innovation or promoting employment and social inclusion to create a European-wide critical mass of interventions on agreed priorities, and focus political and public attention on clear objectives; (2) there is a need to focus more on the results of the policy which will allow regions and member states to learn from one another; (3) we need to put stronger emphasis on developing effective institutions; (4) the delivery system needs to become simpler and more efficient; (5) we should make both the cohesion policy budget and spending rules more flexible to accommodate new needs or to help generate new ideas and approaches, which we so desperately need. “I have seen for myself that this policy makes a real difference across the Union. And long may it continue to!” the commissioner said. (G.B./transl.rt)