Brussels, 29/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Commission will be meeting in seminar on 19 June to discuss reforming regional policy after enlargement. After the conference on Monday and Tuesday of 400 experts from Member States and regions (see below), a number of meetings and reports are expected in the next few months to add to the post-2006 debate. In 2006 the current EU regional policy will end but the EU is expecting to have at least 10 new Member States, most of which are less developed than the current 15. Since there is consensus that aid to the most backward regions should continue (Objective 1 for regions whose GDP per head of population is less than 75% of EU average), the Commission is concentrating on keeping EU aid for the other regions (Objective 2 for regions being "rehabilitated", Urban, Interreg, etc).
At the Council, Member States have started work group discussions. Few Member States have yet revealed their hand so early in the negotiations, but a report is being prepared that should reflect the current situation in the debate and could be approved by COREPER in the next two or three weeks. In the work group, only the Netherlands has strongly come out for restricting aid to an Objective 1 type policy. Several countries have "welcomed" the proposal, but have gone no further than that, explained a diplomat. Germany is not among them and has not yet taken a clear position - the German government favours a renationalisation of regional policy a priori, but has to take account of pressure from east Germany which will lose eligibility for Objective 1 aid. Most net contributors are a priori very hesitant about continuing with Objective 2 type aid, but Spain, Greece and Portugal want their regions to continue to receive aid after 2006. The Council held its first general debate on this issue in February 2002 (see EUROPE of 19 February).
In the next few weeks, the Commission is expected to publish a study (expected for the last few months) on the benefit of Community aid to the EU as a whole. According to the first Cohesion Report (published more than 5 years ago), 30 to 40% of the benefit of aid goes to countries other than the one directly receiving the aid (through benefits obtained by German or French public works companies carrying out work funded by the European Cohesion Fund in Mediterranean countries, for example). Other sectoral studies are being prepared, for example on the information society or sustainable development. The Commission is also organising several conferences on issues raised by its Cohesion Report - in London on 8/9 July on Urban; in September on social affairs (human resources, employability, etc); at the beginning of October on mountains; towards the end of 2002 or at the beginning of 2003 on simplifying regional policy and its procedures. At the end of 2003 the Commission will unveil its proposals for regional policy post-2006 in its third Cohesion Report.
Regional representatives call for simplified Objective 2 policy to be continued
The seminar in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday focussed on reforming Objective 1, continuing Objective 2 and inter-regional co-operation. Commissioner Barnier launched the idea of a pick and mix Objective 2 (see EUROPE of 27/28 Pay, p.10). The people attending the seminar were mainly regional representatives, but Member States and candidate countries were also represented. They were unanimous that something over and above Objective 1 was needed, even the finance ministries' representatives agreed on it, explained the rapporteur for this particular workshop. Everyone agreed too that the policy had to be simplified. But there was not agreement over which approach should be taken, or on the Commissioner's proposals, except that the regions said that in the event of a pick and mix policy, they wanted to be the ones who chose what selections were available. At the end of the debate, Philippe Cichowlaz of the CPMR echoed these concerns, saying that everyone agreed to ease the zones but that did not mean abandoning all Community criteria since it would be a form of renationalisation of EU regional policy if states were left a free hand and this would damage the geographical equilibrium between and within Member States. The workshop considering Objective 1 clearly agreed, as expected, that a policy for backward regions had to be maintained. The third workshop, on inter-regional co-operation, demonstrated board desire to extend such co-operation. Many people expressed doubts about Commissioner Barnier's proposal to incorporate such co-operation in all regional policy, explained the rapporteur. Inter-regional co-operation is not a priority for Member States so regions prefer to keep specific instruments like Interreg, she explained, and would also like to extend external co-operation with non-EU regions (in the North, the Balkans and the East).