The European Commissioner for Cohesion Policy and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, said that the work of reflecting on the future of cohesion policy must start now, when she addressed the 9th Summit of Cities and Regions in Marseille on Thursday 3 March.
“We must continue the process of modernising and simplifying cohesion policy. The reflection on the future of cohesion policy must start now”, she said.
Drawing on the lessons of the 8 Cohesion Policy Report (see EUROPE 12887/2), the Commissioner stressed that the policy must become even more “agile, flexible and user-friendly” while responding to the EU’s political priorities and reform programmes.
In this respect, the Commissioner highlighted three fundamental principles that should be included in the post-2027 cohesion policy, namely: - the territorial approach; - the partnership principle; - multi-level governance. And to reaffirm the role of the “partners” of the Cohesion Alliance in the forthcoming negotiations, an Alliance that had lobbied the European institutions strongly to protect cohesion policy.
During her speech, the Commissioner also reiterated the principle of “do no harm to cohesion”, i.e. do not pursue any policy that could run counter to the objectives of territorial cohesion. Here, the Commissioner insisted on the importance of maintaining “coherence” between the different European instruments, notably between the Recovery and Resilience Plan and Cohesion Policy.
She also expressed concern about the slow pace of implementation of the new cohesion policy, noting that only half of the partnership agreements and a quarter of the programmes had been submitted to the European Commission. “These are the enabling frameworks for investments that are vital! We cannot delay - and we cannot risk losing them”, she said.
During her speech, Mrs Ferreira identified four main risks that threaten regions and cities: - an asymmetric economic recovery; - a stagnation of middle-income regions; - a territorial divide in innovation; - a divide in the green transition.
The European Commission’s announcements are reassuring to many observers of the regions. Indeed, under the ‘Juncker’ Commission, the future of cohesion policy, until its presentation in May 2018, had seemed very uncertain.
The institution had imagined drastic budget cuts (see EUROPE 11901/8), the targeting of cohesion only to the least developed regions, or even the abolition of categories of regions (see EUROPE 12021/1).
The Spanish and Belgian Presidencies of the EU Council will be pivotal
Although the next budgetary cycle seems far away, work is starting and is expected to accelerate significantly under the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2023. It will be up to the Presidency to prepare the proposals and the views of the Member States, we were told. These are expected to be presented under the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council in the second half of 2023.
The good news, a European source told us, is that these two Member States support cohesion policy. However, the issue of timing will come up again with the European elections in 2024, the source continued, which may slow down the work and the nature of the proposals. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)