The organisations representing local and regional authorities have welcomed the various announcements made by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday 14 September with a degree of circumspection.
The big question mark was on the announcement of the doubling of the financial capacity and the duration of the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) (see EUROPE 11624). While welcoming the initiative, Committee of the Regions President Markku Markkula stressed that a top-down approach must avoided as it would lead only to “more populism and extremism”. He argued that “a better Europe is a cohesive Europe”. If investment is to succeed, it must be ensured that it “starts local and supports social cohesion”, he argued. In his opinion, financial instruments can never be more than complements to cohesion policy.
This was a point of view shared by the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), which warned against any attempt to replace cohesion policy with the EFSI. CPMR President Vasco Cordeiro stressed that the EFSI should be a tool integrated with the other European funds, in particular those of cohesion policy. Unsurprisingly, the CPMR president underlined that it was imperative for the EFSI to be tied in with investment in the maritime sector.
The Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) wondered at Juncker’s announcement that every European town and village would have free wi-fi access points by 2020. In the view of a source within the CEMR, this was a somewhat extravagant statement. This source told EUROPE that the Commission communication was looking at a scheme involving between 6,000 and 8,000 municipalities, “or, put another way, slightly under 8% of the local authorities in the EU” (there are 91,534 local authorities in the EU). “We wonder about the procedure the Commission intends to put in place to access funding: first come, first served – which give some authorities an advantage over others”, the source told EUROPE. It could, the source suggested, be easier for authorities with greater numbers of staff to submit their applications.
Secretary General of Eurocities Anna Lisa Boni thought that the Commission proposal was a good one but, in her view, there are other issues equally deserving of European investment, such as unemployment, air pollution, sustainable mobility and the refugee crisis – priorities set out in the Pact of Amsterdam adopted in May of this year (see EUROPE 11561). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)