Brussels, 30/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - A few days after the British referendum that voted in favour of Brexit, the organisations representing the regions and cities met the Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, on Wednesday 29 June, to discuss the future of the cohesion policy in the framework of the current period, but also for the period post-2020, and with regard to the Juncker Plan.
The President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), Markku Markkula, said that the decision that the UK had made would have legal and financial consequences for the multi-annual programmes of the Union. However, he believes that the most important thing is to focus on the complementarity between the structural and investment funds (ESIF) and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) ahead of the “difficult period to come”. The CoR President said that it would also be necessary to focus on simplification, to reopen the dossier on indicators other than GDP to be taken into account calculate the national envelopes - which underwent a technical adjustment on 30 June (see other article).
The question of the interplay between the ESIF and the EFSI was one of the main concerns of the Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), which also attended the meeting. The President of this organisation, Enrico Rossi, afterwards told EUROPE that the Juncker Plan should not replace the cohesion policy, but complement it. “We have had a positive response. But not so clearly positive”, he told us, commenting on Timmermans' response.
Timmermans reportedly said that the ESIF and the Juncker Plan should not compete with each other, but added that he intended to raise the issue with his colleague responsible for the Juncker Plan, Jyrki Katainen. The increasing use of financial instruments is one of the regions' major concerns (see EUROPE 11493).
Anna Lisa Boni, Secretary General of the organisation representing Europe's cities, Eurocities, described the meeting as useful, as the role of urban areas had been clearly acknowledged by the Commission Vice-President. “They have a part to play in the process of reconnecting Europe to its citizens, and are therefore particularly important in the wake of Brexit”, she told us.
This exchange was held in the framework of the structured dialogue launched following a political agreement in 2015 between Vice-President Timmermans and the President of the CoR, and aims to prepare the European Commission's working programme for next year. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)