Brussels, 09/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - The Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) has a duty to remain vigilant regarding the financial package, said CRPM President Jean Yves Le Drian during his opening speech at the association's “political bureau” in Brussels on Thursday 9 February. He added that the role of the CPMR is to show that investment in the regions is essential for growth and confidence-building. The package presented, he went on, seems to tick those boxes and it must now be guaranteed and safeguarded.
The CPMR calls for calculation of structural funds to be based on statistical data as close as possible to the programming period, and recommends that the reference period be 2009-2011 (and not 2006-2008 as the Commission had recommended), so that the consequences of the crisis are taken truly into account.
Friends of the presidency. The above point of view is shared by Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland), who has expressed concern about maintaining the budget for the next cohesion policy programming period. She underlines that talks on the structural funds budget are currently conducted in a clearly separate way, in parallel to talks on the legislative package, within the “Friends of the Presidency” group. The group in question is composed, notably, of advisers for European finance ministers, which only adds to Hübner's distrust, as these experts have a vision that is clearly different from that held by ministers responsible for regional policy, and do not therefore necessarily have the same sensitivity when it comes to cohesion policy priorities. “Everyone must communicate”, Hübner stressed. Finally, she called on the European Parliament to be robust in its work to ensure that the cohesion package is adopted as soon as possible. She provides for a first vote in Parliament in July, allowing a first reading agreement to be reached with Council after the summer break with a view to adopting the package at the end of the year.
Foretaste of common strategic framework The deputy director of DG Regional Policy of the European Commission, Nicholas Martyn, announced that staff working documents would be adopted at the end of February regarding the common strategic framework and code of conduct, which should possibly facilitate discussions on the cohesion package. These documents, which do not have any legislative value, will set out in detail the Commission's guidelines on implementation of structural programmes. Not only the common strategic framework but also the code of conduct will be the subject of an official proposal once the cohesion package has been adopted. Martyn underlined that the Commission hopes to produce a common strategic framework in the form of a delegated act, something that has not met with the Parliament and Council's great pleasure, as they would prefer an annex to be attached to the general regulation applicable to the five structural funds. (MD/transl.jl)