While welcoming the clarification provided by the agreement between the UK and the EU, the regions are concerned about the impact of Brexit on their activities and the place reserved for them in the final agreement.
Although the agreement was negotiated on the EU side by a former Commissioner for Cohesion Policy, Michel Barnier, the regions noted how little attention they are given in the agreement. “From the point of view of local and regional authorities, it is regrettable that their important role is largely absent from the agreement”, said Committee of the Regions (CoR) President Apostolos Tzitzikostas, responding to EUROPE.
“Indeed, they are only mentioned when it comes to adapting certain points of the agreement to regional conditions, or on very specific issues (such as tax provisions). In particular, the agreement lacks the participation of local and regional authorities in the structures envisaged under the agreement”, he continued.
The President said that the CoR will seek greater recognition of the role of local and regional authorities in the future of EU-UK relations, either through participation in the Joint Partnership Council or the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, or through some other structure, he said.
Mr Tzitzikostas pointed out that local and regional authorities had not been officially included in the negotiations, but that they had not stood idly by. Last June, a contact group between the CoR and the United Kingdom was set up to maintain political cooperation between the Union and British local authorities, and two resolutions were adopted.
Although he welcomed the ‘Brexit’ reserve of 5 billion euros, the President considered that the sum was likely to be “insufficient”. “The governance mechanism proposed for the reserve should also include a role for local and regional authorities”, he added, pointing out that the proposed national and sectoral distribution key does not include a regional component that would allow regional criteria to be taken into account, as seen for example in the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund.
Mr Tzitzikostas welcomed the continuation of the PEACE programme, the Union’s programme to support peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the Border Region of Ireland.
Addressing the issue of territorial cooperation, although there is currently no European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), “there is an interest in creating one in the future in order to develop cross-border cooperation“, he said. “Territorial cooperation is key and we shall soon start talking about a macro-regional strategy including the UK”, he concluded.
The North Atlantic and North Sea maritime regions
For her part, the Secretary General of the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR), Eleni Marianou, recalled how exposed the maritime regions around the United Kingdom are. “For example, Brittany estimates that British partners account for 80% of its cooperation projects with the EU. Under the INTERREG Atlantic Area programmes, 192 UK partners are involved in the current period (representing 20% of the total programme budget)”, she explained to EUROPE.
One of the major concerns for these regions is fishing quotas. Negotiators have agreed on a transition period during which the value of fish caught by the EU in British waters will be gradually reduced over a transitional period of five and a half years, she explained (see more news).
Once the transition period is over, the UK will fully control access to its waters and could make much greater reductions on an annual basis, with three months’ notice for the closure of access, she continued, creating uncertainty for British and European fishermen. Indeed, the EU could respond by imposing taxes on British fish exports to the EU or by denying British vessels access to EU waters.
Moreover, Marianou fears the additional costs that Brexit represents for port regions and SMEs (see other news on the internal market). She also hopes that Ireland will not suffer too much from this agreement and that it will benefit from sufficiently strong maritime connections with the continent to avoid “being isolated”. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)