Brussels, 15/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - It is expected that the General Affairs Council (GAC) of this Tuesday 16 October will arrive at a partial general orientation on the legislative package reforming the cohesion policy post-2014. This third orientation relates to seven elements, with no major issues. It will be up to the Cypriot Presidency to reach a final orientation on two elements; the joint strategic framework and the financial management, which will be much more controversial.
The 27 ministers responsible, meeting in Luxembourg on Tuesday 16 October, will start their meeting with a legislative discussion on this new partial general orientation. It is not likely that there will be any sticking points, as a broad compromise seems to have been reached already among the member states over these seven new elements. These are the provisions on: local development (sustainable urban development and local development carried out by local players); local cooperation (trans-national between regions; trans-national with a greater geographical and inter-regional scope); the management and control (criteria to appoint the national authorities to manage the structural funds); on information, communication and technical assistance (for greater transparency and visibility); and also on the indicators, to assess the impact of the cohesion measures.
Two elements could still, however, be the subject of some debate. These are, firstly, the plank on financial issues, including the transferability of resources from one category of regions to another, and on the condition of additionality. This latter point provides that European funds represent added value over national funding. Italy is believed to have reservations on this issue, in particular because the Presidency is excluding the regions in transition from the calculation method (as the sums in question are not high enough). Additionally, the elements on recommendations per country will be clarified in the new partial general orientation, but this time it is the Commission's turn to have reservations. The Parliament has already stated that it prefers a link between the cohesion priorities and the national reform programmes rather than the recommendations per country, due to concerns of stability. The Council, however, is insistent that the broad outlines of cohesion should refer to the recommendations per country, in order to ensure a certain coherency between the two exercises. At the GAC, a joint Commission-Council declaration is expected to circulate as well as the compromise, to reassure still reluctant member states that the reference to the recommendations will not be too binding.
The Cypriot Presidency is extremely concerned that the budgetary negotiations on cohesion (which cover macroeconomic conditionality, for example) should not disturb the legislative negotiations on cohesion, and vice versa. The two debates, therefore, will not overlap. But this could have the consequence that issues are not fully debated in either forum. This is regretted by Portugal, amongst others, which argues that issues relating to its islands have not yet been dealt with.
Further to this partial general orientation, it will remain for the ministers to agree on the final two elements in order to conclude the legislative package on cohesion (at this stage, there is no agreement on anything until there is agreement on everything). But these are two particularly controversial planks: the common strategic framework and financial management, which the Danish and Cypriot Presidencies opted to postpone until the end of the negotiations. However, Cyprus still intends to tackle the issue during the month of November. (MD/transl.fl)