At a meeting with eight member states from Central and Eastern Europe on Friday 2 February in Budapest, the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Marianne Thyssen, presented a number of major areas for reflection to help enhance social convergence and reshape the European Social Fund (ESF) in view of the next multi-annual financial framework.
First of all, the Commissioner highlighted the need to use the social scoreboard more as part of the European Semester, a mechanism that had been launched as part of the adoption of the European pillar of social rights (see EUROPE 11906). Ms Thyssen considers that in the future they will therefore need to strengthen the link between the ESF and the European Semester. She believes this kind of solution would help strengthen the commitment from ministers in charge of employment, social affairs and education when using the ESF.
The Commissioner also wanted to see greater complementarity in the future between European funds, whilst at the same time maintaining their specificity (direct management as opposed to shared management) in an effort to bolster European investment in “human capital”, a reference to her project for creating an “umbrella fund" focusing on human capital (see EUROPE 11902). Commissioner Thyssen also suggested taking into account other indicators in addition to per capita GDP at the level of the core regions for the application of regional policies (NUTS II) and allocating funds, by drawing on certain criteria in the score board as a means of clarifying socio-economic complexities.
At a more general level, the Commissioner emphasised the need to guarantee greater socio-economic convergence in the next commercial framework. According to the information we have received, this position won unanimous support from the member states attending (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Slovenia). Nonetheless, although the principle obtained support, the precise mechanisms, particularly the new conditions, as envisaged by several member states and even within the European Commission, were not discussed. Another area of agreement involved the need to simplify European funds.
On the same day, the Visegrad Group, together with Romania and Croatia, adopted a common statement on the parameters of future cohesion policy (see EUROPE 11953). It should be pointed out that the proposals to reshape the ESF were not appreciated by the regions, which are concerned that the ESF would escape the remit of cohesion policy and the principles governing it (see EUROPE 11903). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)