Brussels, 3/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - At the General Assembly of the Committee for Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR) in Aarhus (Denmark) on Friday 30 September, the European commissioner in charge of the internal market and services, Michel Barnier, said that he was convinced it was time to change the paradigm for cohesion policies. The president of the association, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said that “over time, the link between the single market and cohesion policy has slightly slackened off but there is no doubt that today we are in the middle of creating a new duo”.
The commissioner sees this renewed duo in a much more positive light. This is not about compensating the effects of the internal market to the detriment of the regions: “the internal market must be understood as a vector for cohesion and I am keen to relaunch the internal market in this sense”, emphasised the commissioner. He also intends to achieve this aim through the single market act he recently proposed with its 12 levers for growth and around 40 concrete proposals.
To this end, he explained that he needed the regions and provided assurances to the local representatives that “you are there on the ground and the first to be confronted with the consequences of this crisis at a human, social and economic level”(…) I believe that each citizen is necessary, each business is necessary, and each territory is necessary. We need each and every region to take part in this battle. The digital revolution and increasing trade provide new opportunities for the regions including those that are most remote and peripheral”, he concluded.
This approach won the approval of Carlos Cesar, the president of the autonomous government of the Azores (Portugal), who also considers that Europe needs the regions to support the internal market. He summarised the situation by explaining that “cohesion policy and the internal market constitute two sides of the same coin”.
In a reference to the multiannual financial framework, Barnier suggested to the regional representatives that they should be vigilant and “find points of support at the European Parliament, national parliaments and the Commission” because according to the commissioner, “in the budget proposed by the Commission we have preserved a really credible policy for the regions with up to €340 billion. However, between our proposal and the decision that will be taken next year, there is a margin of risk: nations closing in on themselves, selfish national attitudes and a danger that people consider regional policy as archaic or useless or would simply like to reduce it to a charity fund.” (MD/transl.fl)