Member state ministers and representatives were united on the second day of the General Affairs Council on Wednesday 16 November in highlighting the need to communicate cohesion policy better.
It began with Walloon Region Minister-President Paul Magnette. Commenting on what cohesion policy achieved over the period from 2007 to 2013, Magnette, who became famous for his opposition to the EU-Canada free-trade agreement (see EUROPE 11656), hammered home the absolute necessity of better communication with citizens.
In this he was joined by a number of other delegations, including Germany, Ireland, Croatia and France, a diplomatic source has told us. The French delegation expressed the fear that the image projected by cohesion policy would be its complexity. France believes that all players have to be involved and that there has to be communication with citizens at grassroots level.
Regional Policy Commissioner Corina Cretu agreed and, at the press conference after the meeting, stressed that “success stories” had to be highlighted at local level. She indicated that she wanted very shortly to begin an extensive communication campaign to demonstrate the benefits of this policy.
New adjustments for the current period and first debate on future of cohesion policy. The Council did not deliver any legislative decision. However, ministers adopted long conclusions in which they welcomed the impact assessment study of cohesion policy 2007-2013 carried out by the Commission, and proposals that same institution made to simplify the policy and increase its effectiveness in the current period as part of the mid-term review of the multiannual financial framework (see EUROPE 11667).
Slovak Deputy Prime Minister for Investments Peter Pellegrini, who chaired the Council, stated that ministers, for the first time, discussed cohesion policy after 2020 over lunch. The discussion had not gone into detail, he told EUROPE. They stressed that the policy had to be made simpler and more effective. They discussed simplifying audits and possible differentiation of audit and checking systems depending on the situation in the member state, said Cretu.
On macroeconomic conditions. In its conclusions, the Council considers that “more consistency should be sought in the future between various measures linking the effectiveness of the ESI Funds to economic governance”, taking into account the need to “accommodate social, economic and territorial challenges” – a reference to macroeconomic conditions, spotlighted recently through the threat that hung over Portugal and Spain of suspension of structural and investment fund commitment appropriations for failure to eliminate excessive deficit. Ultimately, the threat was not realised, the Commission proposing not to suspend funding (see other article). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)