Strasbourg, 07/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - What are the challenges with regard to cohesion policy facing the Summit? As the European Council devoted to the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2014-2020 opens on Thursday 7 February, Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland), chairwoman of the European Parliament's regional development committee and former commissioner for regional policy, took stock with EUROPE.
(AE) - What do you think about the European Council possibly introducing further cuts to cohesion policy funding?
Danuta Hübner (DH) - I don't believe that cohesion will be a target, and I hope not. The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has repeatedly said that cohesion policy would not be affected by further cuts. What is important for cohesion policy is that we have a decision from the European Council now and that we start negotiations as soon as possible between the Council and the Parliament. Because we are already behind, it is later than last time. And for cohesion policy, it is both the level of funding and timing that matter if you want to start investing next year. So if we have a decision of the Council now, we will vote in plenary in May or June, so in the middle of the year.
(AE) - The EP seems keen to reject a budget lacking ambition. What would the consequences of this be for cohesion policy?
(DH) Some say that we do not need an agreement because we can just reconduct the 2013 budget. I'm furiously against the idea of an annual budget, it would be a terrible mistake. Cohesion is a policy in which you have commitments one year, then payments come over years. So if we have an annual budget, we cannot make commitments! This would be a problem for all programming, not only for cohesion policy but also the common agricultural policy and rural development, for example.
(AE) - The European Council will approve the controversial macro-economic conditionality. What's at stake?
(DH) Even though it is in the MFF “negotiating box”, it belongs to the regulation on cohesion policy that we are negotiating through co-decision on an equal footing with the Council. The European Parliament's position has been very clear: we are against it. We cannot accept macro-economic conditionality which aims to punish beneficiaries of the structural funds because the national authorities are not respecting macro-economic rules, such as the excessive deficit. We believe that penalising a member state through other policies cannot be justified. There are enough instruments in the “Six-pack” to punish. We believe that suspending funds in the middle of implementation of cohesion policy is going to lead to legal problems. Because commitments are made by the authorities to finance projects and then the money can be suspended, or even withdrawn. However, there have been changes. Initially, in the Commission proposal, both payments and commitments were equally affected. Now, there is differentiation for slightly lighter irregularities and also only commitments are affected. So there is a certain adjustment in the Council proposals. Nevertheless, the position of the European Parliament is very clear. We will see what kind of document we receive for the negotiations.
(AE) - Is the so-called transition regions category still in danger?
(DH) It is also part of the MFF “negotiating box”. The heads of state already partly agreed on that in the November European Council. It is clear that they are maintaining the structure. However, with a slightly lower financial allocation than in the European Commission proposals. (MD/transl.fl)