Brussels, 14/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - Mercedes Bresso, the president of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), provides us with her interpretation of the European Commission (EC) proposal on the future of cohesion policy. The institutional organisation she presides over is the main stakeholder affected by the new regulations and budgets proposed for European structural funds and the programming on 6 October for the 2014-2020 programming period. Today, Bresso expresses her concerns regarding the forthcoming year of negotiations and her point of view regarding the position of the regions in the European architecture. (MD/transl.fl)
AGENCE EUROPE - Are you concerned about the way in which the negotiations will go with regard to cohesion policy funding for 2014-2020?
Mercedes Bresso - I am not yet overly concerned, no, but it is clear that there are a few worries, yes. The letter from the eight states requesting a reduction in the European budget (EUROPE 10457) and the fact that this has been publicly repeated by some of the states has all left us feeling rather uneasy. On the other hand, the position of the European Parliament, for example, is very clear, as is the position put forward by several members of the Council. We have, however, received a little reassurance by the fact that the regions of some major states, particularly the signatory states of the letter, wield significant power and are absolutely in favour of cohesion policy and are opposed to any reduction. Therefore, even if there is any possible reduction in the overall budget, which I am entirely hopeful can avoided, I think that the cohesion policy envelope should not be affected too much.
AE - You have criticised the macro-economic conditions. Do you think that these will be withdrawn during or after the negotiations?
M.B. - On the question of macro-economic conditions, I can see that we are not the only ones against them. First of all, voices against quite naturally come from all the different levels of users affected but also quite clearly and unequivocally from the Parliament, as well as from many states, which have said that they are opposed to these conditions.
My impression is, above all, that we are talking about a hypothesis, which involves a stage that goes beyond controls exercised by states experiencing budget deficits because we are currently putting in place much tougher and binding rules. The threat of withdrawing funds is not compatible with the real situation, where Commissioner Johannes Hahn visits southern Italy, for example, to reduce co-funding and facilitate the use of the funds. I am fairly confident that we will either ultimately get rid of the macro-economic conditions totally or render them unusable.
We have analysed things at a legal level. It is improbable that macro-economic conditions can be tackled in the courts for breach of subsidiarity but, on the other hand, these conditions have a very weak legal basis to them. It will be necessary to work on this legal basis to demonstrate that it they are not viable. This needs to be highlighted, together with the support of the Parliament and the Council's legal services.
AE - Would it also be possible to link the regions to partnership contracts that will be concluded between the EC and member states, instead of simply integrating the regions upstream?
M.B. - We are currently attempting to develop an understanding because legally speaking, it would appear that there is no point for the EC to sign partnership contracts with the states. It would therefore probably not involve a genuine partnership contract between the EC and the state in question. It is more likely that it would involve the state that has a partnership contract demonstrating that it has the agreement of all the different partners and, above all, the agreement of direct users, which are obviously the regions and also involve the cities. Probably, but for the time being we are attempting to develop a better understanding.
In this interpretation of the situation, it is a bit like what we said with regard to the regional pacts because we have always called for a preliminary state-region-territory pact, in order to work with the Commission on this basis afterwards. Ultimately, it will end up a bit like this.
It would, in any case, be better because in this instance we will have a surplus of objectives (EUROPE 2020, spending rules and usual cohesion policies). It will therefore be necessary to decide together which items will be important in this menu of themes and which ones we will promote in an effort to attain EUROPE 2020.
Therefore, we consider that it is important that with regard to what we want to do, we need to be very clear from the beginning and let the EC know that there is a commitment from those who will be involved in putting things into practice as well.
AE - How would you describe relations between the CoR and the other institutions? Do you get the impression that the regions have been left out of the institutional architecture?
M.B. - I increasingly believe that the different European institutions recognise that we, the regions and local authorities, represent an essential level of government and if we manage to get things done it is because we have good partners at regional and local level. We are the interlocutor with whom dreams can be made into reality. Even our relations with the Council, which were previously difficult (because it did not take us into consideration) have considerably improved and have in fact become excellent. Relations with the EP have also become excellent and with the Commission they always have been. The European machinery understands us better.