Brussels, 24/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - The outlines of the macro-economic conditions applicable to cohesion policy are beginning to take shape. During the meeting on Wednesday 23 May at COREPER (Committee of Permanent EU Member States to the EU), the Danish Presidency presented a new version of the “negotiating box” on the 2014-2020 financial framework. This includes more detailed modalities on macro-economic conditions. On agricultural spending, the Presidency is currently choosing not to retain the option for reducing a certain percentage of the envelope in direct aid. On Tuesday 29 May, the General Affairs Council will discuss a complete version for the first time (spending and revenue) contained in the negotiating box.
The contents contained within the negotiating box submitted to COREPER provide a broad outline to the beginning of a compromise between so-called cohesion countries, which did not want this macro-economic conditionality, and other countries known as net contributors, which favour a mechanism that can suspend some of the Structural Funds to a country if it does not respect the rules of the revised Stability Pact. The new paragraphs added to the text on the negotiating box focus on the macro-economic conditionality seen by certain delegations, such as France and Estonia, as a step in the right direction. Some countries have requested that the suspension of funds only include commitment appropriations (and not payment appropriations), which the Presidency document does not exclude. The new version of the negotiating box also introduces for the first time, the possibility of placing a ceiling on the suspension at a certain percentage of GDP. The exact figure has still not been made clear.
On the reduction of agricultural aid, the Danish Presidency does not now insist on inserting a paragraph into the negotiating box on the possibility of reducing the direct payments envelope allocated to farmers, due to the opposition from many countries to this idea (see EUROPE 10618). It does, however, say that this question will at some stage be put back on the negotiating table. Poland, which makes cohesion policy its priority, therefore continues to step up the pressure on the question of agriculture and has requested the reintroduction into the negotiating box of a similar mechanism for reducing direct payments (by excluding countries whose aid is below the EU average), in an effort to allow swifter convergence of levels of direct payments among member states. Portugal, Sweden, Slovakia, Bulgaria and the United Kingdom support the Polish request. France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, however, oppose it. (LC/MD/transl.fl)