Decoupling the Common Provisions Regulation into two texts, reducing the number of categories of regions to two, reintegrating rural development into cohesion policy... MEP Constanze Krehl (S&D, Germany) launched several ambitious and innovative proposals in the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI) on Thursday 21 April.
Presenting her views on her own-initiative report on the 8th Cohesion Policy Report (see EUROPE 12887/2), Ms Krehl expressed her annoyance at the EU Council’s attitude during the negotiations on the Common Provisions Regulation, which Ministers are still linking to the Multiannual Financial Framework, thus delaying the negotiations. In her view, many points could be closed quickly so that programming could begin promptly.
Thus, for her, one solution would be to divide the Common Provisions Regulation into two texts: one dedicated to the “political” content, the other to the “financial” content. In this way, the co-legislators could already make progress on the key political contents of the Regulation, allowing the programming work to begin.
In another striking proposal, the rapporteur suggests reducing the number of categories of regions to two from the current three. There would then be one category of regions above the European average and another below.
She also called for the creation of a ‘Just Transition Fund 2’ which would be fully integrated with the other cohesion policy funds. She suggests that the starting point should be the NUTS3 regions in order to have a more targeted action on the needs of the territories.
The German MEP also called for the integration of rural areas into the scope of cohesion policy, i.e. reintegrating the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), which is the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Finally, she insisted that respect for the Rule of law should not be at the expense of the beneficiaries of cohesion policy, echoing the criticism made in the past of the macro-conditionality mechanism.
Positive feedback to proposals
These various proposals were of concern to MEPs, particularly with regard to the proposal to decouple the Regulation into two texts and to bring rural development back into the fold of cohesion policy.
On this last point, Younous Omarjee (The Left, France), Chairman of the REGI Committee, recalled that it was the REGI Committee that had abandoned the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
Krzysztof Hetman (EPP, Poland) welcomed the MEP’s suggestions. For the latter, cohesion policy must play a role for rural areas. On the issue of respect for the Rule of law, the Polish MEP suggested that money should be paid directly to beneficiaries for Member States that pursue a policy that contradicts the spirit of the EU treaties.
Pascal Arimont (EPP, Belgium) also welcomed the idea of reintegrating rural development into cohesion policy. On the other hand, he expressed some doubts about the decoupling of the Common Provisions Regulation into two texts. Such an approach could facilitate the EU Council’s work in the negotiations, he said. Citing the Climate Change Adaptation Fund project, he proposed to create a new chapter in the Just Transition Fund in the future.
Niklas Nienass (Greens/EFA, Germany), on the other hand, expressed reservations about the decoupling proposal and the proposal to reduce the number of regional categories to two.
Ms Krehl will present her draft report on the 8th Cohesion Policy Report at the session on 10 May. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)