Brussels, 23/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - After a meeting in Liège of EU cohesion ministers, the minister-president of the Wallonia region of Belgium, Rudy Demotte, said that progress had been made in a number of areas. Regions in transition, for example, will be treated fairly and internal conditions will be attached to Cohesion Policy to act as direct incentives for implementing regional and operational programmes. This approach moves towards greater responsibility for the regions. Strong dislike was voiced, however, at the idea of Cohesion Policy being subjected to external conditions in the form of penalties to punish bad macroeconomic governance and/or improper transposition of EU directives and structural reforms.
The meeting concluded the following. Firstly, on the connection between Cohesion Policy and the EU 2020 Strategy, the Structural Funds aim to reduce socioeconomic disparities and to help make EU 2020 a success but attention must be paid to “thematics”, respecting a number of aid priorities to be set out at EU level. The regions should decide on their priorities as a function of their own needs. Next, on the stability of the Cohesion Policy set-up, there should be a stabilisation of the breakdown of aid between Objective 1 regions (convergence, GDP per head of less than 75% of the EU average), Objective 2 regions (catch-up aid for urban and rural areas facing structural problems like de-industrialisation, with GDP per head of above 75% of the EU average) and Objective 3 regions (adjusting and updating policies, along with education, training and employment systems). Most speakers argued for gradual removal of regions from Objective 1 status. The participants will examine the Commission's idea of setting up an intermediate category of regions to this end. Particular attention was paid to urban areas. Each region will need to decide whether it wants to focus aid on urban areas. Finally, on special conditions attached to Cohesion Policy in order to make it deliver more effectively, the ministers expressed concern at the idea of non-Cohesion Policy conditions being attached, particularly in the form of penalties for failings in macroeconomic governance, the transposition of EU directives and failure to properly implement structural reforms, but they were open to the idea of Cohesion Policy being subject to cohesion-related conditions that should act as incentives (suspending aid, for example). Ministers want such conditions to be directly related to implementation of the regional Operational Programmes to increase the responsibility of and ownership by the regions. This would take the form of stronger partnership and closer dialogue with the Commission, encouraging greater ownership of the EU objectives. As a Belgian Presidency expert pointed out, the Cohesion Policy gobbles up €350 billion, more than a third of the overall EU budget and it is therefore only natural that guarantees should be given to finance ministers. (G. B. trans fl)