Brussels, 10/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - At a forum held on Thursday 10 May, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) brought together representatives of various institutions and regions to discuss the Common Strategic Framework for five of the EU's Structural Funds post-2014. The focus of the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the EU's regions was on the European Commission's draft legislation, examining it with a fine toothcomb to ensure nothing has been left to chance for when the authorities managing programmes funded by the cohesion policy make use of the strategy in the 2014-2020 programming period. The forum was organised to try and get a clear picture of the issue and to enable the CoR to stress areas of concern to the regions.
No national reform programmes. The CoR rejects the idea of macroeconomic conditions being attached to receipt of funds by which funding would be suspended for countries failing to meet its obligations under the Stability and Growth Pact, and also rejects the idea of 5% of funding being held back and paid out to the highest performing project, and partnership contracts between regions and the deal signed by the Commission and member states. The head of the CoR, Mercedes Bresso, spoke about the option of aligning national and regional cohesion strategies with national reform programmes, saying: “Multiannual programming must not be subject to constant changes of course. We know that such an approach is inefficient and it is precisely to prevent it that the cohesion policy was devised.”
Budget vs growth. The talks are focusing on the common fear that the cohesion budget will be slashed in the talks on the multiannual financial framework (the EU's long-term budget). Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland), chair of the European Parliament's regional development committee, said that there was a renewed focus on the growth agenda, which is good for the cohesion policy and a new approach is forming to ensure common-sense budget decisions are taken to generate further growth, but was pessimistic about the talks over the new multiannual financial framework. She said one should not saw off the branch one is sitting on and the EU budget provides an opportunity to get out of the crisis so that things get better.
Hahn backs transition regions. EU Commissioner for the Regions Johannes Hahn was very clear on the transition regions issue. He said that their impact is around €39 billion, but the attempt by member states to save that money by opposing the creation of such a category would not bring about €39 billion of savings because there would be a phasing-out regime anyway for regions coming from the convergence objective, and support for the others, so the final savings would be more like €8 billion. (MD/transl.fl)