Strasbourg, 24/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - Everything is now on the table for an overall agreement on cohesion policy reform, following the trialogue meeting on Wednesday 23 October.
Speaking during the night of 23-24 October, on Twitter, the European Commissioner announced that “good progress” had been made.
Semi-agreement. Rumours abounded at the beginning of the meeting on the probability of an agreement being reached at last. Ultimately, however, after discussions were closed late in the evening, there was still no temporary agreement but rather “something” that looked like one, although it still had to win Coreper approval. Coreper is expected to reach its decision on Tuesday 29 October but the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of Ministers already appeared to be in contact with the delegations the day after the trialogue, on Thursday 24 October.
The different elements. The different elements that will make up the finishing touches to the imminent compromise between the Council and Parliament unsurprisingly focus on macroeconomic conditions. It will be about defining of the European Parliament's role in the decision-making procedure for suspending structural fund payments in the event of use of macro-conditionality after repeated failure by a member state to comply with EU economic instructions. Although this is not a matter for co-decision, Parliament will, nevertheless, be involved in all the different stages of the procedure. The other elements also include all the socio-economic indicators, such as unemployment, poverty and recession, which could be used as a reference for imposing a specific threshold for fund suspension. Nonetheless, it is not yet clear whether payments will be affected by suspension, this still being a grey area with Parliament opposed to it.
Agreement at the beginning of November. If Coreper accepts the demands made by Parliament during the Wednesday evening trialogue and given a possible final trialogue during the week of 4 November, an inter-institutional agreement could be a possibility. If there is a done deal by 13 November, including adoption of the agreement by the rural development committee, a plenary session vote on cohesion policy reform is also possible.
Plenary vote. Nevertheless, despite all this, it is not entirely certain that the reform can be adopted. Parliament is going beyond its mandate by accepting the macro-conditions, albeit grudgingly, and is effectively watering them down considerably. MEPs are still strongly opposed to the macro-conditions and it is therefore going to be a difficult task for the co-rapporteurs and coordinators to “sell” the emerging compromise and ensure its adoption during the plenary. All efforts are being made to avoid a second reading, which would threaten the launch of cohesion policy funded programmes in January 2014. (MD/transl.fl)