Brussels, 20/03/2013 (Agence Europe) -Trialogue negotiations on cohesion reform are stalling. They began last July and the European Parliament rapporteurs intended to conclude them by this summer. There are no longer grounds for confidence that this will be realised, as indicated by the rapporteurs to the European commissioner for cohesion policy, Johannes Hahn, when he addressed the Parliamentary committee on Tuesday 19 March.
The commissioner, however, did express hope that an agreement could be found on the subject by the summer break. Constanze Krehl (S&D, Germany), however, the rapporteur on the common regulation for the five structural funds had the feeling that “if we do not speed up the pace of the trialogue meetings, we run the risk of not being ready by the end of the year”. She blames the Council for this delay and underlined the fact that they should recognise the European Parliament's role as co-legislator: “We were euphoric and confident that everything would move ahead so quickly. The European Parliament has done everything that it could for this to be the case and we have been working in a spirit of compromise. In different respects, however, results are found wanting from the other side. We have still not broached the controversial points or discussed certain difficult themes”. She indicated that “we are discussing whether member states are prepared to recommend e-cohesion and implement it. We were talking about this for hours and it is not Parliament's fault. Therefore, Mr Commissioner, we need to speed things up”. Her co-rapporteur, Lambert van Nistelrooij (EPP, Netherlands), also asserted that they should “not run the risk of launching the programmes in real-time. In two readings, it should still be possible to put the trialogue agreements to music and resolve the points dividing us”. On the other hand, in an effort to make these negotiations more effective, he is also calling on the Commissioner to provide information regarding the financial impact, per country and per fund, of the Council's political agreement on the EU budget for 2014-2020: “I am asking you to clarify as much as possible because it is very difficult to work in the circumstances with only estimates or inaccurate information”. (MD/transl.fl)