Strasbourg, 22/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - The trilogue on reforming cohesion policy did not come to a successful conclusion in Strasbourg on Monday 21 October. The reason for this is that the blockage on macroeconomic-conditionality was maintained. Another trilogue will take place on Wednesday 23 October, also in Strasbourg.
The leader of the European Parliament's S&D Group, Hannes Swoboda, is furious. The day after the failure of this umpteenth trilogue, he said that the manner in which the Council was reacting was “unacceptable”. “The Council is blocking a compromise”, he said, recalling that the Parliament had always been opposed to macro-economic conditionality, as it is an “absolute nonsense” because “the regions would be sanctioned twice”. Indeed, in the case of repeated non-respect of EU macroeconomic injunctions, a country could experience suspension of Structural Funds payments intended for the regions. This is all the more inadmissible when it is about regions whose unemployment rate is high, Swoboda stated. The European Parliament negotiators are making use of the social-economic factors and poverty and recession indicators to reduce as far as possible the negative impact of macroeconomic criteria, should they be applied. In the trilogue talks on Monday evening, the parties discussed definition of the scope of application of the macroeconomic conditions in order to clarify use of the mechanism. A series of formulae would be drawn up based on these factors to decide on the degree of suspension and decide on the maximum amount of money that might be suspended if macroeconomic criteria were applied as a matter of last resort.
The Parliament's role in the suspension procedure was also discussed on Monday evening. At this stage, sources suggest there is agreement that the Parliament would be involved in all stages of the procedure, even before any decisions are made. (MD/transl.fl)