The Director General of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy (DG REGIO), Marc Lemaître, deplored the delay in the implementation of the Structural and Investment Funds for the period 2014-2020, during his first speech to MEPs of the newly formed Committee on Regional Development (REGI) on Tuesday 3 September.
"In terms of concrete implementation of the policy, we are nearly at the end of the sixth year of this financial framework, and we have not yet implemented one quarter of the amount available", the senior official said, annoyed, during his opening remarks. "This is a pretty poor and extremely slow performance (...) this is not a sustainable situation", he told MEPs.
Mr Lemaître pointed to a major culprit at the root of this situation: the N+3 decommitment rule, the principle that the funds allocated in each programme can be spent no later than three years after the end of the budget cycle. In his view, this new provision introduced too much financial laxity compared to previous multiannual financial frameworks, where the N+2 rule was applicable.
In Mr Lemaître's view, this situation is particularly damaging, particularly for the future of cohesion policy, which is facing strong criticism among Member States because of its complexity and supposed inefficiency.
In conclusion, the senior official advised MEPs not to renew this N+3 rule.
MEPs divided
Mr Lemaître's point of view raised debates and questions among MEPs. Some, such as the co-rapporteur on the multiannual financial framework, Jan Olbrycht (EPP, Poland), seemed to agree with the Director General. Others, such as Tomislav Sokol (EPP, Croatia), argued that this N+3 rule helped the least developed regions with the weakest administrative forces to absorb funds year after year.
This argument was rejected, the senior official recalling that, during the two previous budget cycles, the N+2 rule had worked despite the integration of 13 new Member States and the onset of the economic crisis. He also recalled in its reply that the Commission had not proposed a "sudden" return to the N+2 rule, but, on the contrary, a "gradual" return (see EUROPE 12013/6).
"I am telling you if we are not changing the N+3 rule, we can go for all the simplification in the world, we can go for the continuity of the systems, and so on... implementation, I bet, will still be poor in the coming period", he retorted to the MEPs.
For the Director General, the priority is to reach agreement on the main elements of the Common Provisions Regulation before the end of the year, in order to start talks with Member States and prepare the programming for the next budget period.
This return of the N+2 rule is also generating debate in the EU Council, particularly among the beneficiary Member States (see EUROPE 12282/1).
The priorities of the REGI Committee
On the same day, MEPs discussed an internal European Parliament study on the most important points for the REGI Committee on cohesion policy 2019-2024: - provide the EU with a global strategy similar to the EUROPE 2020 strategy; - keep the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) among the Structural and Investment Funds; - preserve the principle of partnership, which establishes horizontal collaboration among all actors at all levels of governance; - ensure that the link between the 'European Semester' budget process and cohesion policy does not divert cohesion policy from its objectives; - strike the right balance between performance and policy simplification; - improve communication on projects funded by cohesion policy.
To view the study: http://bit.ly/2ktGiRz (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)