Brussels, 01/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - MEPs went relatively easily on the commissioner-candidate, Corina Cretu, a newcomer to the area of regional policy, during her hearing on Wednesday 1 October. The Romanian candidate and former MEP has, in principle, already passed the test but will need, however, to be tougher in the future when defending the interests in her portfolio. Although this Social Democrat candidate shone in her lightning-quick learning of the dossiers, she did not provide any novel responses to the certainly very civilised questions put to her by MEPs.
EP regional development committee (REGI) coordinators did not veto the candidate for the post of European commissioner for regional development, following her hearing. However, the groups noted a number of grey areas in her competence and would like Cretu to propose a concrete solution to the payments problem and work in close collaboration with the European Parliament and “fight for cohesion policy rather than learning about it”, explained one European source.
During a smooth and very well studied performance, the commissioner-designate left a number of misgivings, particularly in the ranks of the EPP. She was asked about the still significant disparity between guarantees and payments (€23 billion at the end of last year), Cretu demonstrated her determination to “slow down this snowball effect in unpaid invoices” but would simply promise “to personally speak to the College of Commissioners about it”. This response satisfied the Socialists but less so the Christian Democrats. Lambert Van Nistelrooij (Netherlands), EPP coordinator, regretted that she had not put forward clear ideas on how to resolve the problem. Overall, he thought that Cretu “might be a bit more tough on the debate. For this kind of things you must be a big fighter in the European Commission and the Council and I didn't see too much of that yet. We want to give her a chance”
Macro-conditionality. The commissioner-designate mainly accurately repeated the well-known positions of the European Commission in the field of regional development. Cretu intends to practise a policy of “zero tolerance” to fraud in the management of structural and investment funds. She also defended macro-economic conditionality, which includes the suspension of funds when a member state infringes the stability and growth pact. She judged it, “necessary” but, like her predecessor, added the rider that it would be only applied as a last resort. She also said that the Commission would not play the role of “policeman” and asserted again that she shared the opinion of MEPs that “the people should not be punished for the inaction of member states”.
Budgetary flexibility. She said that she regretted the low rate of absorption of European funds in Europe (Romania is at the bottom of the table in this respect) and said that she refused, however, to ignore the quality of projects in order to spend more quickly and warned that “we shouldn't absorb simply for the sake of absorbing”. She also displayed her awareness about inconsistency facing member states when they had to meet the demands of the stability and growth pact but were also were required to co-finance structural funds. Nonetheless, Cretu simply pointed to the planned budgetary margin for manoeuvre and stated that it was up to the Council to make a decision on whether co-funding should be excluded from the budgetary deficit calculation.
Partnership. Unsurprisingly, Cretu expressed her support for the partnership principle included in cohesion policy reform. She insisted that this principle should not simply be a value on paper but had to “ensure that the beneficiaries took part in making the decisions”. Questioned about the GDP criteria in calculating the distribution of structural funds, she again acknowledged powerlessness and asserted that, if other criteria had to be taken into account in the future, neither the Commission nor the European Parliament could decide on them by themselves. (MD)