Brussels, 09/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - In an effort to take territorial specificities into account better, a number of regions previously formulated a proposal to expand the criteria for allocating European funds (in addition to GDP) as part of the cohesion policy framework. The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions' (CPMR) final declaration adopted in Florence on Friday 6 November, however, put this proposal firmly on the backburner and the regions will have to wait for the Commission to take a position on this issue.
The proposal was debated at great length during the second day of the assembly. According to one source, the CPMR would support such a change to the criteria but considers it premature to push the argument forward at the present moment, given the almost inexistent room for manoeuvre DG REGIO currently has. The member states are very much attached to GDP and the predictability this criteria provides and believe that opening the debate would create another phase of instability. The same source also believes that defining what criteria should be included would be particularly difficult, given that the CPMR brings together almost 160 different members.
Together with the Commission initiatives (see EUROPE 11385), the future of cohesion policy took up a large part of the debates. The regions are therefore demanding that their participation is increased in the cohesion policy framework, particularly with regard to the islands' dimension, which appears to be “largely ignored”, as well as improved application of the multilevel governance principle as stipulated by Article 5 of the regulation on common provisions (No.1303/2013).
The question of the corridors in the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), for which the Commission has launched a second call for proposals (see EUROPE 11425) and the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) were also on the regions' agenda. They believe it absolutely necessary to improve coordination between the corridors, particularly those for freight and at a regional level because they are closer to what is happening on the ground. They also point out that the CEF has still not been included among national priorities. The regions are therefore calling for (at the same time as a revision of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2016) the “accessibility principle” to be prioritised in an effort to facilitate the access of the peripheral regions (particularly those for the islands and outermost regions) to the corridors.
Eleni Marianou, the secretary general of the CPMR, spoke to EUROPE in this connection and said, “We have to prove that cohesion policy is a powerful tool”. She pointed out that the regions are “the backbone of European policies” and are on the front line for their implementation. The organisation, therefore regrets the fact that the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Cretu, in her speech on 28 August to the European Congress of the Regional Science Association, no longer planned to integrate the regions into cohesion policy, unless, according to a study by the organisation, regional disparities deepen (see EUROPE 11376). Regional representatives are calling for cohesion policy to be treated as a priority within the context of the Multiannual Financial Framework reform and to put an end to the macro-conditionality principle, in keeping with the demands put forward by the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11421).
The UN Climate Conference (COP21) is fast approaching and the regions attempted to highlight the crucial character of their role in this area and, therefore, demand that they are full participants in the drawing up and implementation of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures and in the follow-up of the programmes on the climate and 2030 global agenda. In this connection, the regions are also calling for better access to funds, particularly the EU Solidarity Fund, which at the present moment can only be activated at the request of the member states. With regard to the French Polynesian proposal, the CPMR would also like the islands to be better taken into account in the COP 21 conclusions.
The energy question was also debated at the assembly. The discussions illustrated the need to revise the notion on “island energy”, which currently only applies to the member states and makes no mention to the island regions, which, nonetheless, have to face the same connection challenges with the mainland and the issue of security of supply. This question particularly affects the outermost regions, such as the French overseas departments, which are characterised by their huge distance from the European continent. They would like, therefore, during the next revision, more funding to be allocated to them in view of ensuring an accelerated conversion towards renewable energies, which would help them become more energy independent.
The participants noted the absence of Commissioner Cretu, who was visiting Naples and Matera in Italy. Cretu cancelled the trip a week before the general assembly took place. The Commissioner's services justified this cancellation to EUROPE on the grounds that the “mission to Italy… had been planned a long time ago”. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)