Brussels, 05/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of the Regions (CoR) has sent out a strong and unprecedented signal in favour of excluding the national and regional co-funding of projects paid for out of the structural funds from the calculation of the budgetary deficit.
For the first time, all of the political groupings and European delegations shared the same opinion. This level of consensus is by no means replicated in many other European institutional formations.
Excluding co-funding. Two extremely clear-cut opinions were adopted on this subject, virtually unanimously, by the members of the consultative body on 4 December. The first, which was drawn up by the president of the Socialist group, Catiuscia Marini (Italy), includes a request for investments made by local and regional authorities in the framework of the structural funds and the Cohesion Fund to be excluded from the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact (report on the quality of public expenditure in areas under EU measures). The opinion goes on to stress that co-funding should be excluded from the public deficit calculations in order to speed up and facilitate the implementation of the European programmes. It also calls upon the Commission to present a communication on how the provisions on flexibility in the Pact can be applied to promote public investment.
In the same vein, the opinion put forward by Italian Socialist Nicola Zingaretti argues that the national and regional co-funding plank in the context of structural and investment funds should be removed from the Pact.
At the plenary session, the President of the Committee of the Regions, Michel Lebrun, said that the move would be a way of removing obstacles to investment in the regions and at local level. When asked about this by the members of the CoR at the plenary session, the European Commissioner for Regional Development, Corina Cretu, kept her views to herself.
Investment plan. The Committee of the Regions also adopted a resolution welcoming the presentation by the Commission of the €315 billion investment plan. It particularly welcomes the suggestion that public contributions to the future European fund for strategic investment be excluded from the calculation of the Stability Pact deficit. This is a small step towards the more ambitious calls of the Committee of the Regions. (MD)