On Tuesday 25 June, at the invitation of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the ministers of the Member States responsible for Cohesion Policy will discuss the thorny issue of strengthening the link between European economic governance, Cohesion Policy and the 'European Semester' budget process.
The Presidency will take as its starting point the recent "territorialisation" of the "European Semester", which aims to better guide investments made under the European structural and investment funds (see EUROPE 12271/15).
Ministers will therefore be invited to take a position on: - improving the operationality between cohesion policy and the European Semester; - future challenges in light of specific recommendations and, in particular, those that may arise during the mid-term review planned by the European Commission. Interesting point: the Romanian Presidency will seek to determine how to optimise the link between economic governance and convergence objectives.
However, the strengthening of the link with the recently "territorialised" budget process is clearly linked to macroeconomic conditions. These may form the basis for a particularly controversial mechanism, which may lead to the suspension of payments in the event of an excessive deficit in a Member State, even if, so far, it has never actually been implemented, as illustrated by the cases of Portugal and Spain in 2016 (see EUROPE 11669/2). As a reminder, MEPs have deleted macro conditionality (see EUROPE 12193/2).
The issue of the mid-term review is also being debated among Member States, who do not take a very positive view of the proposal. They are also considering allowing only 50% of the funds to be programmed after 2025, and not the whole amount (see EUROPE 12150/5).
In the EU Council, the Romanian Presidency will also take stock of the negotiations in the EU Council on the common provisions regulation between the structural and investment funds. At the end of May, the Member States gave the green light to Block 7 on definitions, thus completing all the negotiating blocks, after a final skirmish on the new conditionalities (see EUROPE 12269/12). Only Block 8, linked to the negotiating framework for the next financial perspective, remains open.
To consult the document of the Presidency on the orientation debate: https://bit.ly/2Ww2rvk. For a progress report on the negotiations on cohesion policy, see: https://bit.ly/2ZiNXRm. For the four-column table, see page: https://bit.ly/2IEuDaO (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)