Brussels, 31/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - Those involved in cohesion policy are beginning to be considerably concerned about the time negotiations are taking on reform of cohesion policy and the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for the next planning period 2014-2020. Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who is responsible for regional development, and the members of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) sounded the alarm on this during the plenary session of the consultative body on Thursday 30 May.
“With no agreement in sight and crucial issues of the regulation still to be discussed, the situation is getting more and more concerning. All EU institutions need to be aware of the consequences of further delays”, warned CoR President Ramon Valcarcel. He denounced the fact that MFF talks had been taken hostage by an agreement on the 2013 rectifying budget. “We were and we are in an exceptional situation, requiring exceptional decisions. This is, instead, EU business as usual”, he bemoaned. Commissioner Hahn is somewhat more encouraging but acknowledges that work for preparing the next planning period must not be delayed any further, saying: “Even if negotiations on the multiannual financial framework are still on-going, it is crucial to proceed quickly with the planning of the new regional programmes at operational level. (…) This is why we need an early agreement on the MFF. If we can get this, we can also get investments in the private sector flourishing again”, with structural funds even attracting investment. The leader of the EPP at the CoR, Michael Schneider (Germany), is hardly optimistic, however. He said that “the current lack of information on the entity of available funding and on crucial aspects of the regulation, as well as the insufficient involvement in the partnership agreements process, make it very hard for regions to prepare operational programmes in parallel with the negotiation between the European Parliament and Council”. Schneider's counterpart from the Social Democrat Party, Catiuscia Marini (Italy), regrets the fact that, without an agreement, the involvement of regional and local authorities could be “a mere bureaucratic exercise without any substantial impact on strategic decisions”.
The members of the CoR once more expressed concern about macro-economic conditionality, which should be negotiated in the near future, and which suggests the suspension or the suppression of financing by structural funds to the countries that do not accept European economic governance. The commissioner said in his response that he was aware of reservation expressed on this subject but said the “carrot and the stick” principle should not be applied except as a last resort. (MD/transl.jl)