Brussels, 05/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - Dialogue between the Commission and the Committee of the Regions (CoR), held on Monday 5 December at a meeting of CoR's Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy (COTER), hints at the fact that the regions and the NGOs representing local authorities still aspire to greater multi-level governance and to flexibility, and are still raising the question of conditionality. The European commissioner in charge of regional policy, Johannes Hahn, speaks of unwarranted concern regarding his legislative proposal reviewing cohesion policy for the next programming period (2014-2020). He continues to speak of macro-economic conditionality (which would see suspension of structural funds if governments do not bend to the recommendations in line with the financial stability pact), such as a last resort instrument. He also gives his assurance that the Commission does not intend to be over restrictive by establishing per region category quotas for funding themes. He has explained that they hope to take needs into account, as well as the objectives set out in the EU2020 strategy. Without questioning the principle of concentrations, Catiusca Marini (PES, Italy), who is CoR rapporteur on the joint regulation on the next cohesion policy, stated she was perplexed when it came to the flexibility of themes that might not meet specific regional features. She also deplored the fact that the partnership contracts were somewhat too focused on member states and did not sufficiently take local authorities into account. Neither is she convinced about the 5% reserve of funding that would ultimately be paid as an incentive to achieve results. Catiusca Marini fears that, when it boils down to it, this might encourage the authorities to establish their objectives downwards, to be sure that they are attained. This, she explained, would be quite opposite to what is wanted. (MD/transl.jl)