For the members of the commission for territorial cohesion policy and EU budget (COTER) of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) there is no doubt: the cohesion policy of the future must continue to work for all regions, from the most disadvantaged to the most highly developed, according to a draft opinion they adopted in Warsaw on Thursday 2 March.
The opinion, which will be put to a vote in the plenary session in May, was adopted after a marathon day of voting on amendments. It is 15 pages long and contains numerous, more or less well known, demands, among other things structured around long-term planning, coordination of economic policies, results-based implementation, multi-level governance and simplification.
Among the most keenly awaited demands, the CoR calls for a comprehensive model covering all regions, focusing on the most disadvantaged and the outermost regions. At the same time, the role of most developed regions as drivers of regional economic growth also has to be strengthened, in order for them to be as well prepared as possible in the face of global competition.
This approach is not self-evident, as may be seen from statements in both the Council (see EUROPE 11553) and the European Parliament (see EUROPE 11494) where it has been suggested that the next cohesion policy should focus only on the less well developed regions at a time of increased budgetary pressure following the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU.
Policy principally of subsidies. More generally, the regions do not seem to want a complete recast of cohesion policy but call for a balance to be struck “between continuity and the need for renewal”. In short, a message similar to the one from the enlarged Visegrad Group (see EUROPE 11737).
Rejecting all talk of increasing reliance on financial instruments in the future, the COTER members believe that in cohesion policy subsidies must not be replaced by loans. They argue that the European structural and investment funds (ESIF) should not be brought into conflict with the European fund for structural investments (EFSI), the financial arm of the Juncker investment plan which provides public guarantee to private investment.
In terms of flexibility, COTER wants more leeway on amending operational programmes within the objectives of cohesion policy. The commission members also back the idea of a planning reserve to cover pilot projects, experimental measures and unexpected tasks.
Other known demands that should be highlighted are: - improving communication on positive impacts of cohesion policy; - improving partnerships with a legally binding code of conduct; - drafting of a new strategy to follow on from the 2020 strategy; - strengthening the role of the Commission in shared management; - compliance of ESIF with state aid rules; - additional use of indicators other than GNP, to take account of the environmental, social and demographic situations in allocating funding.
The regions, which are against any differentiation of monitoring on the basis of specific situation, call for “a consistent single audit approach”. Elsewhere, with regard to the European semester, they suggest “an annual ‘structural dialogue on the state of cohesion in Europe’”.
Rejection of conditions linked to national policies. COTER stated its firm opposition to any approach whereby regional or local authorities would be “punished” for failures by national government. This is in reference to macroeconomic conditions and also to the recent proposals from the Commission that payment should be made conditional of compliance with respect for the rule of law (see EUROPE 11736).
Also, worth noting is that a Social Democrat amendment put down by Micaela Fanelli (PES, Italy), calling for ex ante conditions on taking in refugees to be introduced in the allocation of funding, was rejected by the Conservatives. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)