Brussels, 29/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - The co-rapporteurs on the common regulation for the five structural funds have indicated that there was a change of atmosphere in the institutional trialogue on cohesion policy reform. The vote on this issue in the Parliamentary committee will definitely go ahead in July but key points are still pending.
At the regional development (REGI) committee meeting on Wednesday 29 May, co-rapporteurs, Lambert Van Nistelrooij (EPP, Netherlands) and Constanze Krehl (S&D, Germany), re-explored the results of the 14 most recent institutional trialogue meetings over the past few weeks. Van Nistelrooij asserted that “we are now preparing for the July vote and I would say that several chapters have been opened and closed but that, in certain chapters, there are still a few points that need to be tackled. Nonetheless, 90% of the various articles have been agreed upon and we are pleased about that”.
He mentioned the fact that the questions still pending mainly involved the safety net, the outermost regions, the Connecting Europe Facility, capping, co-funding rates, pre-funding payments and financial instruments. In addition to the points still pending, there are also the questions of macro-economic conditionality, thematic concentration and the performance reserve, which members of the REGI committee are still very concerned about. Some MEPs again underlined the Irish Presidency blockage.
Krehl, however, was largely able to outline the compromises obtained, on the basis of the European Parliament's negotiating mandate. The chairof the REGI committee, Danuta Hübner (EPP, Poland) confirmed that MEPs would be voting in the July parliamentary committee and that the plenary vote would take place in October. (MD/transl.fl)