Warsaw, 10/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - The regional cohesion dossier is one of the priorities of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU. The regional development minister, Elzbieta Bienkowska, even wants to place greater emphasis on this question than it currently enjoys in member states. “There is no formal Council for regional cohesion, only an informal Council. We want to include it during the General Affairs Council, so that this policy can also have its own Council where its future is discussed.” After the CAP, regional cohesion accounts for the second biggest budget and will therefore be on the General Council programme on 16 December.
On this occasion, European regional development ministers will focus the debate around new draft proposals from the European Commission, published on 6 October, on economic and social cohesion programmes for 2014-2020. The Polish Presidency is said to be eagerly awaiting a regulation on this question, whilst having indicated what points of disagreement exist. Bienkowska has some hesitation about the, “efficiency of this new Connecting Europe facility”. Among the Commission proposals, she says that she is particularly opposed to the principle of macro-economic conditionality. “We support conditionality when it involves an assessment but not in the area of the macro-economy. If a country is not able to respond to macro-economic rules, it could be punished and would need to pay back the money that had been allocated for regional policy. Funding and cohesion are, however, two different budgets that are not related to each other. We are completely against it. They cannot depend on each other. Regional policy should not be linked to macro-economic rules.”
The Commission is proposing that structural policies be focused on funding a number of more restricted priorities, closely linked to the EUROPE 2020 strategies. These policies should put the emphasis on results. Bienkowska considers that this is more synonymous with complications than with simplification: “I think that we can expect even lengthier and difficult procedures than those today”. This point will also be discussed before the end of the Polish Presidency. (VW/transl.fl)