Haarlem, 19/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - During an exchange of views on the future of the Union budget in the framework of the political bureau of the Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) on Friday 19 February, the French MEP Jean Arthuis (ALDE) gave voice to his scepticism over the use which has been made of structural and investment funds (SIF) in certain “rich” regions.
According to the French MEP, who is the chair of the committee on budgets of the European Parliament, it would be more effective to concentrate the cohesion funds on the least-favourite regions. Arthuis pointed out for instance that 80% of the European budget goes back to the member states through the cohesion policy and the common agriculture policy. However, when the budgetary adjustments are made, he added, addressing the representatives of the regions, this is done at the expense of the budgets allocated to the supranational level (Horizon 2020, etc.) rather than those allocated to the SIF funds and therefore, at the expense of the European Union and correct institutional functioning.
For instance, he criticised the attitude of certain regions, which he feels tend to consider themselves constantly hard done by compared to others, and the attitude of the member states, which he feels tend to use European funds as a substitute for national subsidies, which ultimately limits their impact in the real economy. For this reason, the MEP calls for the increased involvement of the national parliaments in budgetary control, as they are closer to what is happening on the ground than the MEPs, “shut off in their Brussels bubble”.
His arguments seem to have somewhat annoyed the president of the CPMR, Vasco Cordeiro, who, although welcoming the proposal to beef up the role of the national parliaments, pointed out that the cohesion policy did not simply boil down to the regional financial question, but above all contributed to the objectives laid down in the European treaties. Pierre Karleskind, vice-president of the Regional Council of Brittany, stressed that his region was not eligible for certain sources of European funding, such as the TETN, as it is not connected to any of the nine corridors, going on to stress that the gaps in territorial cohesion also appear in the wealthier member states.
The regional official told EUROPE that the other problem is the rigidity in the categorisation of the regions. Brittany is currently categorised as one of the most developed regions (as its GDP per head of population is 90% higher than the EU average), even though in reality, it is one of the transition regions (with GDP per head of population 75% lower than the EU average) due to the statistical effect of the regions of member states from Central and Eastern Europe. This classification has therefore cost the region some €200 million in European funding, he said.
According to Eleni Marianou, CPMR secretary general, Arthuis's vision has much in common with that of Wolfgang Schäuble, whose has previously stressed that the European funds should present genuine “European added value”, rather than take the place of national funding. If this logic is followed through to its conclusion, the risk is that eventually, the cohesion policy will apply only to the least-developed regions, Marianou said. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)