Brussels, 01/06/2011 (Agence Europe) - On a visit to Brussels on Tuesday 31 May to defend the future of the EU's cohesion policy, the presidents of various regions of France called for identical sums of money to be invested in the cohesion policy in the future as at present and for the continuation of common agricultural policy (CAP) spending.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, Vice-President of the ARF (Association des Régions de France) with responsibility for European issues, who is also president of the CPMR (Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions) told a handful of reporters that the regions were not budget-guzzlers but wanted cohesion policy funding to continue because within the current system, some regions were emerging from the cohesion phase and therefore aid was being phased out. This applies to regions whose GDP per inhabitant is between 75% and 90% of the GDP average. Some of them would enter a new category of “intermediate regions” with the same amount of funding. Le Drian said it was all a question of how cohesion funding was managed and his argument was clear and simple.
Against this backdrop, the regions of France have two concerns, explained Le Drian: (1) non-recognition of intermediate regions and the slimming down of the overall cohesion policy funding to the benefit of other policy areas. ARF disagree with the French government on this issue because the government wants everything to go to the CAP. ARF wants CAP funding to continue along with cohesion funding, explained Le Drian, pointing out that within cohesion funding, it was possible for the amount of money he was talking about to be drummed up; (2) faced with the imperatives of the EU telecoms, energy and transport policies, which are backed by ARF, French regions want Cohesion Fund cash to be used to address the creation of separate telecoms, energy and transport funds. Le Drian explained that ARF is in favour of separate funds, but did not want the overall budget to be reduced.
The presidents of the French regions held meetings with several key players in the EU budget world like Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland), chair of the European Parliament's regional development committee, Pervenche Berès (S&D, France), chair of the EP's employment and social affairs committee, EU Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion Commissioner Lázsló Andor and EU Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn, handing them a statement in which the French regions call for the pursuit of an ambitious cohesion policy after 2013 as part of an updated EU budget based on one or more sources of EU funding independent of the member states to provide the EU with greater financial autonomy. ARF also calls on the Commission, the member states and the EP to immediately abandon any idea of turning back on expansion, which would make regional policy the adjustment variable for the new Financial Perspectives. ARF calls for an approach that reconciles the development of the cohesion policy and domestic policies by updating and adjusting traditional key EU policies, and it stresses the need for a special and equitable approach for all intermediate regions to underpin their development. To this end, intermediate regions should be given greater financial support, argues ARF, with a higher rate of co-funding and the option of providing greater funding for transport, energy and ICT infrastructure. The French regions want regional policy to be kept at the at least the same level as at present for regions whose GDP per inhabitant is more than 90% of the EU average. (G.B./transl.fl)