Writing to new Committee of the Regions (CoR) President Karl-Heinz Lambertz on Wednesday 26 July, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker seeks to reassure Committee members on the future of cohesion policy, giving assurances that the Commission “has no plans to limit cohesion policy or even to abolish it altogether”.
Juncker was responding to a letter sent at the end of June by former CoR President Markku Markkula setting out for him a resolution adopted by the CoR in the wake of the presentation of the White Paper on the future of Europe (see EUROPE 11763). In this letter, the CoR rejects any scenario that would limit or, indeed, abolish cohesion policy.
Juncker’s reply, extracts of which have been seen by EUROPE, seeks to give reassurance: the European Commission, Juncker says, supports most of the points contained in the CoR resolution, going on: “I would like to point out that the scenarios presented in the white paper are merely options, there is no preferred scenario of the commission. I can reassure you that the commission has no plans to limit cohesion policy or even to abolish it altogether”.
The response seems to have satisfied Lambertz, who tweeted that the Commission president’s letter was “reassuring and welcome”, before calling for a “stronger, more effective and more visible” post-2020 cohesion policy to be put in place, in line with his political programme (see EUROPE 11829).
It should be pointed out, however, that Juncker said nothing about a far-reaching proposal in the resolution: that all new European legislation that has an impact on regional or local governments should require the agreement of the Committee of the Regions.
Concern remains high among the regions as to the future of cohesion policy. Recently, Regional Policy Commissioner Corina Crețu and her colleague at Budget, Günther Oettinger, presented a reflection paper on the future of the financial framework of the EU in which four of the five scenarios contained a significant or even a swingeing cut in the budget of the new cohesion policy (see EUROPE 11818). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)