Brussels, 26/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 26 May in Brussels, the regional development committee (REGI) adopted the report of Markus Pieper (EPP, Germany) on the European Commission's report on the post-2013 cohesion policy strategy. At the end of the vote, French EPP MEPs from the committee welcomed the adoption of the report (27 votes in favour, 18 against), with a compromise amendment, which includes their proposals for developing greater fairness in the distribution of European funds. This amendment calls for the creation of an intermediate category for the regions, including per capita GDP between 75% and 90% of the European average. The rapporteur did not want this amendment to go in this direction because he opposed the creation of a new general aid category for regions. He considered that this would be “contrary to the principles of EU cohesion policy” (support for poorer regions, focusing local potential within a horizontal approach in the richer regions).
The main controversy created by the report focused on the creation of this intermediate category, explained the president of the REGI committee, Danuta Hübner, to journalists the day before. She highlighted MEPs' disagreements, which existed in the EPP Group and in the other political groups on this question. She indicated that “the idea is as follows, we want three regional categories. Citizens, however, are afraid that if we begin with this kind of thing, it will always be the case. This is not true because it will only be for a period up to 2020.” In this category there are regions that are very close to those that have a per capita GDP of 75% and those that have a per capita GDP of 90%. This means that there are regions within the “convergence” objective and others within the “competitiveness/employment” objective. Treatment will therefore not be the same, explained Hübner. This intermediate group of regions now includes 51 different regions, 17 of them from “convergence” and 34 from “competitiveness/employment”: France (10 regions), United Kingdom (9), Germany (9), Greece (6), Belgium, Greece, Italy and Spain (4 each), Austria, Finland, Malta, Poland and Portugal (1 each).
In a press release, the EPP explained that “we have been calling for this new category for months, to enable regions that are neither too poor nor too rich but which are confronting structural difficulties, to tackle their problems more efficiently and to promote their own specific advantages. Around 10 French regions could therefore benefit from greater funding. This intermediate category will be financed from a permanent budget, by way of savings generated by the expected departure of several regions from Objective 1.” Signatories include Alain Cadec, Brice Hortefeux, Maurice Ponga, Marie-Thérèse Sanchez-Schmid and Sophie Auconie. The EPP press release also declares that they wanted the Commission to continue in this direction in its legislative proposals for the new post-2013 structural funds architecture.
In his report, Markus Pieper requests: - that more emphasis be placed on added European value in structural and cohesion programme policies; - a common strategic framework for ERDF and ESF in the programming period; - the elimination or merger of different funds, which are considerably important for regional development and cohesion; - for removal of the EGF as an autonomous instrument and appropriate provision to take into account its objectives within the ESF framework; - that co-funding should be considered as one of the fundamental principles of cohesion policy. He also supports the Commission's proposal for use of the “N+2 Rule”, apart from during the first programming year and to put an end to exceptions. (G.B./transl.fl)