Brussels, 12/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - The guillotine has fallen and MEPs have scrapped the macroeconomic conditions and performance reserve from the European Commission's plans for the EU cohesion policy in 2014-2020. The European Parliament's regional development committee endorsed on Wednesday 11 July the amendments compiled by Constanze Krehl (S&D, Germany) and Lambert Van Nistelrooij (EPP, the Netherlands), rapporteurs on the regulation covering five Structural Funds (the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund, the Cohesion Fund, the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Fund for Maritime Affairs and Fishing). The vote showed that the committee will oppose excessive sanctions and is concerned about local authorities. The committee chair, Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland) said the committee wanted a cohesion policy strongly connected to the EU's structural objectives, and the challenges facing the regions and the MEPs' approach left enough space for custom-built programmes for specific regions and cities. The decisive vote at the committee marks the start of inter-institutional negotiations.
Macroeconomic terms and conditions slashed. The MEPs on the regional development committee battled with a complex raft of thousands of amendments, slimmed down to a few dozen compromise amendments. The most ambitious amendment was clearly the idea of scrapping all the macroeconomic terms and conditions introduced by the European Commission for all the EU Structural Funds. The terms and conditions would suspend or cancel the payment of cash to member states that fail to keep public spending under control, as required by the fiscal compact. The MEPs have always opposed this idea as punishing regions for crimes committed centrally by the member states, said Hübner. It has now been put on paper that MEPs want to get rid of the conditions entirely, but this will not be easy to achieve at the Council of Ministers. Krehl sees it as a question on which the EP will refuse to budge.
Performance reserve has been scrapped. Another radical decision is the complete rejection of the performance reserve whereby the Commission wants 5% of funding to be held in reserve and only paid out if programmes can prove their effectiveness in practice. MEPs oppose the idea, which was intended as an incentive, for fear that it would cause aims to be watered down in order to ensure they are met. The committee agrees with the Commission, however, that the cohesion policy has to perform and has therefore kept the spirit of the initial draft in this connection.
Stronger partnership contracts. The MEPs are to strengthen the partnership contracts, another European Commission innovation, particularly the multi-level approach, saying that the member states and the Commission signing the contract before programmes are financed should take account not only of local authorities, but also of other economic and social partnerships throughout the course of the project.
Transition regions? Yes. The MEPs back the European Commission's reworking of the classification of regions and do not object to the introduction of transition regions (whose GDP per inhabitant is between 75% and 90% of the EU average), unlike the Council of Ministers. The MEPs have increased the cap on co-financing for transition regions from 60% to 75%. Such regions will no longer be described as “less developed” or “phasing out”, because if their GDP is at least 75% of the EU average, they will receive funding of a third of what they receive under the current programming period (four-fifths for Malta, Cyprus and very remote regions).
Flexibility. Other issues valued by the MEPs include changes to the eleven thematic objectives set out by the Commission, like the introduction of sustainable transport in the climate change objective. The MEPs explain that the preconditions to be met before a programme can be funded are only justified if they can affect the performance of the Structural Funds. The MEPs recommend referring to member states' own national reform programmes when deciding which programmes should be funded, rather than the country-specific recommendations drawn up by the Commission (which are still being discussed by the Council). The MEPs have set out their expectations for the budget to be allocated to the Cohesion Funds. Krehl said they want at least the same level of funding as during the previous programming period.
Next step. The vote on the common regulation is accompanied by votes on other Structural Funds (see related article) and this important stage, which took the committee about six hours, gives the rapporteurs an important negotiating mandate for talks with the Council of Ministers. After the first three-way talks on Thursday 12 July, Hübner said the EU institutions pledge to put the final touches to the talks before the end of the year. (MD/transl.fl)