Brussels, 30/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - As negotiations on reform of cohesion policy become bogged down (see EUROPE 10833), Regional Development Commissioner Johannes Hahn, European Parliament Regio committee chair Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland) and the Irish ambassador to the EU, Rory Montgomery, met on Monday 29 April. Their discussion was on how to reach agreement on the issue by the end of the Irish Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers. The Irish minister is also in contact with the president of the European Commission and the commissioner.
The rapporteurs on common structural funds regulations, Constanze Krehl (S&D, Germany) and Lambert Van Nistelrooij (EPP, Netherlands), had deplored during the parliamentary committee meeting last week that the Irish Presidency had eased off pressure to push negotiations along (12 negotiation blocs out of 17 should ideally be concluded by July). Around 50 institutional trialogues and technical meetings have nonetheless already taken place since the beginning of the Irish Presidency on the cohesion package.
After their meeting, Hahn, Montgomery and Hübner decided to meet again in the coming weeks in order to measure progress made. The three-way meetings will continue “intensively” in order to seek to reach an agreement as soon as possible. This was what the spokesperson for the Irish Presidency, Deirdre Farrell, said, specifying that “we have always been aware that reaching political agreement on these important and complex regulations in this timeframe is a challenge for both institutions and we have never underestimated what is involved”. It should be noted that negotiations on the cohesion package also depend on an agreement being reached on the multiannual financial framework 2014-2020, on which talks in trialogue have not yet begun. (MD/transl.jl)