Brussels, 19/04/2010 (Agence Europe) - The investment of €123 billion under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) between 2000 and 2006 has had a clear impact in the regions. An estimated 1.4 million jobs were created during this period, 2,000 kilometres of motorways were built and 14 million people drink better water thanks to EU supported projects. At a cohesion policy 2000-2006 evaluation conference in Brussels on Monday 19 April, Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn met representatives from member states, regions, the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and the European Court of Auditors to present a report bringing together the main findings of cohesion policy assessments. The report recommends for 2007-2013 and beyond that cohesion should more oriented towards performance with greater concentration of expenditure in particular intervention areas and a greater focus on results from planning and negotiating the programmes right through to their closure.
In a press release the Commission says that the key findings of the report are:
(1) Employment/Economy: - member states report the creation of 710,000 jobs in the EU's least developed regions (the so-called “Objective 1 regions”) and 730,000 in the more developed regions (“Objective 2”) at the end of 2006; - from 2000 to 2009, the cumulative effect of cohesion policy on GDP in these regions is estimated to be +0.5% in the EU15 and +3.7% in the EU10; - a macro-economic simulation suggests that the entire EU was better off;
(2) Enterprise and innovation support: - small and medium sized enterprises were the main focus of the ERDF support to business, receiving 83% (€22.9 billion) of this funding; - nearly 38,000 research and development projects received support with the creation of over 13,000 new long term research jobs; - in absolute terms, the ERDF made a perceptible contribution to research and development (R&D) expenditure in Objective 1 regions, adding some 12% to national spending in Portugal, 7% in Greece and 6% in Spain and even more in some of the EU 10 countries, especially Estonia (where total R&D was twice as large in relation to GDP in 2006 as in 2000);
(3) Transport: cohesion policy has supported the construction of 2,000 kilometres of motorways and 4,000 kilometres of rail; - 100,000 kilometres of roads were built or improved; - 31 airports and 45 sea ports were modernised; intermodal links were improved;
(4) Environment: cohesion policy has helped lagging regions to raise standards to comply with the EU environmental legislation with investment of €25.5 billion; - cohesion policy has also funded water supply projects helping 14 million additional people (for instance, in Valencia in Spain) and waste water projects, which benefited 20 million additional people. (G.B./transl.rt)