Brussels, 03/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - Applying multi-level governance and enhancing the role of the Commission in supporting regional and local authorities are the threads running through the report by Ramona Manescu (ALDE, Romania) on “good governance with regards to the EU regional policy: procedures of assistance and control by the European Commission”. The report will be presented for adoption at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg from13 to16 December.
Applying multi-level governance. In her report, Manescu welcomes the Committee of the Regions White Paper on multi-level governance and the recognition of sub-national subsidiarity in the Lisbon Treaty. She stresses that (1) the multi-level approach should be applied not only vertically but also horizontally, among actors of the same level, in all shared-competence EU policies including the cohesion policy; (2) clearer definition of the partnership principle would facilitate the setting up of real partnerships with regional and local authorities; (3) the role of and consultation with the local level needs to be strengthened from the earliest stages of the negotiations on the EU debates; (4) the debate on multi-level governance is strictly linked to that on territorial cohesion: involving sub-national actors in the achievement of the EU objectives is a precondition to effectively implement territorial cohesion, as is simplification of rules at Community and national levels; (5) the potential of territorial cooperation needs to be better exploited to promote multi-level cooperation across national frontiers.
Simplification of rules. Manescu notes that the recent modifications of General and ERDF Regulations have brought considerable progress but, she adds, simplification should not be merely linked to a temporary and extraordinary event such as the economic crisis. On the contrary, it should inspire the entire legislation of the Structural Funds in future. Member states should also simplify their national provisions, which very often contribute to administrative burden not required by the Community rules. As a necessary counterbalance, a stronger culture of evaluation needs to be developed at all levels in order to ensure effective controls and avoid errors.
Strengthening the Commission's role in supporting regional and local authorities. The second part of the report analyses the mechanisms of shared management, in particular the different responsibilities of the European Commission and the member states, and gives recommendations on how to improve the system in the implementation of programmes.
Manescu notes that (1) supervision of the Commission, as currently provided for, is considered as not sufficient and cannot make up for ineffective control systems at national level during the whole multi-annual period; (2) the audit role of the Commission should be stronger at the beginning of the programmes with a bigger role of the national level during the implementation phase; (3) control during implementation needs to be improved by developing ad hoc checks and increasing assistance to the first-level control carried out by the Managing Authorities (MAs) in order to correct irregularities in a timely manner and reduce the overall rate of error: the Commission should concentrate its training and guidance on this level, where the highest percentage of error occurs and in particular on those sectors - ineligible expenditure and public procurement - where the highest percentage of irregularities is detected; (4) overly complex rules governing the structural funds are partly responsible for these errors: the shared management system characterising the cohesion policy implies a high degree of complexity in the interpretation and application of the rules given the numerous actors involved. This indeed represents the real added value of the structural funds but engenders also a higher risk of error. Rules should, therefore, be simplified to ensure more user-friendly procedures and not discourage potential beneficiaries from taking part in projects (see EUROPE 10269).
In conclusion, Manescu says that serious reflection is necessary on how to improve governance and, so, effectiveness of the delivery system of the structural funds for the period after 2013. The discussions within the high level group on the future of cohesion policy should seriously take this aspect into account and Parliament should be actively involved in this debate, she argues. (G.B./transl.rt)