Brussels, 20/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - At the Informal council in Rome on Monday on cohesion policy, the European Commissioner for regional policy, Michel Barnier, announced the main lines of the European Commission proposal expected for 3 December on future regional policy (after 2006). Member States gave some indications of their positions but remained very cautious, notably on budget questions and are waiting for the general debate on financial perspectives (2007…) to be really be begun. Supporters and opponents of a continuation of renationalisation of the cohesion policy reiterated their positions.
According to the most recent draft conclusions, which should normally, b agreed to as it stands, "most Member States" would opt for a regional policy that involves "all the European Union regions", while "some" would come out for allocations depending on the degree of poverty in the country and not the regions. The first position is close to that of the Commission which wants to continue with Objective 1 for less developed regions but also aid for competitiveness for regions undergoing reconstruction. The second brings together the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, accompanied by Denmark and Sweden and calls for greater renationalisation of the cohesion policy to Member States for the main part.
In Rome everyone recognised that, "cohesion policy, while aiming to reduce economic and social disparities, could significantly contribute to implementing the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas"
Conclusions are expected to stress that the regional adoption of competitiveness policies is important for them to be a success. Furthermore, most ministers supported cooperation between regions, in the continuation of the current Interreg programme.
Commissioner Barnier again reaffirmed that he considers 0.45% of Community GDP to be a threshold of credibility for regional policy in the future. We shall come back to his speech in greater detail tomorrow.