Ministers and national representatives met at the invitation of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU in Bucharest for an informal meeting on Friday 12 April to clarify their position on certain aspects of the future cohesion policy for the period 2021-2027.
During the exchanges, the Ministers would thus have shown themselves united on the need to reach agreement on the next multiannual financial framework and cohesion policy by the end of the year, in order to start programming work in time for the programmes to be implemented effectively from 1 January 2021.
Thus, the Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Crețu, would have insisted that interinstitutional negotiations with the European Parliament on cohesion policy resume as soon as possible, citing the month of September. A call also supported by the Vice-President of the Regional Development Committee, Younous Omarjee (GUE/NGL, France), who came to present Parliament's position (see EUROPE 12223/11). The latter would have asked the Member States to make rapid progress, taking into account the work done during the interinstitutional negotiations, which ended prematurely (see EUROPE 12212/15).
On the content of the cohesion package, delegations would have reached a general consensus in favour of maintaining a strong link between the 'European Semester' budget process and cohesion policy, with the exception of Greece and Hungary, which would have expressed some opposition.
Delegations would have agreed that the 'European Semester' and cohesion policy have much in common, but not without highlighting certain differences. Several delegations recalled that the 'European Semester' was an annual process, while cohesion was planned over several years. The question of the nature of the decision-making would have been on a few lips as well, the 'European Semester' being a top-down decision-making process, where cohesion funds are, on the contrary, bottom-up.
In this respect, several delegations reportedly would have stressed the territorial dimension of cohesion policy: in many cases, the structural reforms requested in the country-by-country reports do not correspond to regional needs. Delegations would have welcomed on this point the introduction by the European Commission of Annex D, which "territorializes" the 'European Semester'.
The issue of thematic concentration was widely discussed. Some Member States have reportedly insisted in this regard on the need to avoid "sprinkling" funding on too many priorities. Others would have pointed to the risk that thematic concentration could overshadow the primary role of cohesion policy, namely to reduce the territorial gap. In general, Member States agreed to introduce more flexibility in thematic concentrations, but also in the levels of co-financing and pre-financing.
Macroeconomic conditionality would have revealed strong divisions between delegations, with some countries, such as Germany, considering it necessary and others, such as Greece, opposing it. The other point of contention was the overall budget allocation for the next cohesion policy. Here, the usual fault lines between net contributors and beneficiaries would have been found, the former wanting to reduce the current allocation, the latter wanting to maintain it.
The purpose of these exchanges was to provide guidelines for the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU, which still hopes to reach agreement on the cohesion package on 25 June at the General Affairs Council (GAC).
For the time being, negotiations on cohesion policy are progressing slowly. Block 1 (partnerships), Block 2 (ex ante conditions), Block 5 (controls and audits), and Blocks 3 (monitoring, communication and visibility) and 4 (the different supports), as well as the European Social Fund plus (ESF+), have been closed. An agreement on Block 6, on financial management, should take place on Wednesday 17 April next (see EUROPE 12230/2). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)