Aberdeen, 01/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - How can the future cohesion policy be directed into a new model of European development? The president of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Mercedes Bresso, was in Aberdeen on Thursday 30 September, to submit the proposals of the CoR to the General Assembly of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMR). Along the lines of the commissioner for regional policy, Johannes Hahn, the CoR president stated that this policy should: - be strongly regional in its nature and, at the same time, promote an integrated multi-sector approach; - concern all of the regions, in order to continue being an instrument at the service of European integration; - be an instrument to stimulate social, political and organisational innovation. Bresso stressed the aim of territorial cooperation, which should do more to bolster the dissemination of innovations.
In the view of the CoR president, it would also be most welcome not to postpone indefinitely the use of the additional GDP indicators. “I am afraid that we are all somewhat schizophrenic about GDP: we never stop saying that the cohesion policy is a policy for development and not just a policy for growth. We complain that GDP measures only growth, and complain even more that it does so badly. And then we keep using GDP per head of population as an eligibility criterion! We will have to bite the bullet some day”, she said.
Mercedes Bresso also believes that it is time to seriously reflect on how the cohesion policy interacts with the other policies. She noted that “many of us, also at the Commission, feel that we have gone too far in the business of sectorial disintegration, which started in 2000”. She also welcomed the fact that the Commission seems ready to propose that the major funds in support of the internal development policies of the Union are all brought under the same heading from 2014. “This would make it possible to avoid duplications of effort and reinforce a joint strategic approach. This is an extremely positive step forward, which the Committee has been calling for for years”, concluded Bresso. (G.B./transl.fl)