Brussels, 24/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - The regions want to find their place in the partnership contract which will link the member states of the EU in the future cohesion policy. They also want appropriate funding and more territorial cooperation. Eleven associations of European cities and regions take a common stance in the “St Pölten manifesto” summing up their recommendations regarding the European proposals for the legislative package for the future cohesion policy and the multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020. The declaration was signed on 21 October at St Pölten, in the Land of Lower Austria, by representatives of associations representing the majority of the 143 competitiveness regions.
Money. It is of course a question of funds; the regions state that they are satisfied with the current budgetary proposals put forward by the Commission in the multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020. The regions take the view that it is “important that the investments should not drop drastically (…). The future cohesion policy should have adequate funding (…) Therefore the amount of resources proposed must not be reduced.”
Partnership. But money is not everything, said the Working Community of the Pyrénées (CTP), at a press conference on Monday 24 October: “We need European money, but Europe needs us too. We work with the citizens and local government. We are the people who implement European policies!”. This means that the cities and regions want to be more involved in the partnership contract which will be signed between the EU and the member states upstream of the project funding. The manifesto calls for “all of the regions to be able to participate in all of the decisions, in a full and fair partnership with the European and national levels. The territorial cohesion objective can only be achieved by involving the regional and local authorities at all levels of the decision-making process.”
In the view of Eleni Marianou, Secretary General of the Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), this may be achieved by means of a prior local pact, a sort of political debate for the member states to discuss things with the regions before signing the contract on the structural funds, she explained to the press conference.
This call echoes the concerns expressed by Mercedes Bresso, President of the Committee of the Regions, at the European Congress of Rural Municipalities in Warsaw on 19 October: “We still have doubts about the exact role of the regional authorities in the partnership contracts. The regions and rural communities cannot be satisfied with just the status of co-financer without being stakeholders in selecting the priorities and details for the implementation and management.”
Integrated development. Additionally, “the best way of obtaining optimum results with the structural funds is to include them in the coherent territorial development strategies, and this can be done only by means of a close partnership with the regions”, said the President of the Assembly of the Regions of Europe, Michèle Sabban. The St Pölten manifesto joins the 11 regional organisations together around the need to “deal with territorial development in a fully integrated way: by means of synergies which can be created by the various funds and stakeholders”.
In order to ensure that the regions' common front has an impact on the negotiations underway on the future cohesion policy, the manifesto has been submitted to European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn. In addition, each organisation will call on the member regions of its network to carry the message to national level, so that their calls can be heard at full volume during the discussions for the adoption of the legislative package. (MD/transl.fl)