EU Regional Policy Commissioner Corina Creţu announced in a White Paper published in Belgian newspaper Le Soir on Friday 24 March, that she is considering setting up a tool to support regions suffering from globalisation. The news was greeted with astonishment by the European Parliament.
Listing the challenges to be overcome for the future of Cohesion Policy, the Commissioner said more flexibility had to be introduced to adapt in order to rapidly and efficiently react to crises, particularly to counterbalance the impact of globalisation, such as company relocations. The Commissioner says that the Cohesion Policy does not foresee financial aid for such cases.
Cretu went on to announce that she was looking into the option of setting up a tool to support regions badly affected by the damaging impact of globalisation. The tool would be comparable to the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF) for natural disasters, she said.
The proposal raises a number of questions, starting with how it would interact with the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for supporting people who’ve lost their jobs due to structural changes caused by globalisation, as occurred with Caterpillar, for example (see EUROPE 11619).
MEPs cast doubt. Contacted by this newsletter, Younous Omargee (GUE/NGL, France) welcomed the initiative, but warned that there was a limit to how far Cohesion Policy can soften the impact of globalisation and rather than palliative care, it is re-industrialisation that needs to be financed and globalisation that needs to be changed. Similar noises were made by Marie Arena (S&D, Belgium), who asked why one should multiply funds on the hub of the European Parliament, preferring instead a genuine industrial policy. An advisor to a political group in Parliament confided to this newsletter that he had doubts about the financing mechanisms for such a project at a time when Cohesion Policy is approaching a period of unprecedented lean years now that the United Kingdom is leaving Europe (see EUROPE 11747).
Just at the idea stage at the moment. At the European Commission, people stress that this is just an idea and not yet a started project at the moment. A Commission source said it was one of Commissioner Cretu’s ideas in the context of reflection about the Multi-annual Financial Framework post-2020, which she is contributing to alongside other Commissioner’s ideas. The source was no doubt referring to comments by Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová (see EUROPE 11736).
Moaning is mounting among the member states, some of which are bellowing for an ambitious industrial strategy, although there is no movement in this direction at the moment, with the European Commission arguing that its policies all take European industries into account already (see EUROPE 11696).
Flexibility in use of the European funds is being examined by the European Commission. The institution recently proposed changing the Regulation on common measures to make the Globalisation Fund more flexible (see EUROPE 11750). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)