Brussels, 24/09/2004 (Agence Europe) - At her hearing at the European Parliament on 28 September, Regional Policy Commissioner designate, Danuta Hubner, in answering MEPs' written questions, said that she had more than thirty years of professional experience (23 years of active university teaching and 7 as Polish deputy minister for economic policy and foreign affairs, and three years on the United Nations Economics Committee) . Since 1 May 2004, she has been working as European Commissioner. Asked about the possibility of applying parts of the Constitutional Treaty before it is adopted, Hubner (who was a member of the European Convention) said that when the Constitution's innovations required implementation measures to be adopted based on European Commission proposals, then the necessary preparatory work should begin before the Constitution comes into force. The Commission had to take account of the spirit of the Constitutional Treaty, particularly with regard to greater cooperation between the EP and national parliaments, she added. With regard to regional and cohesion policy, she noted that the spirit of the new cohesion policy article was reflected in draft legislation unveiled by the Commission in July for the 2007-2013 programming period.
Hubner replied in writing to the MEPs' highly detailed and technical questions, noting that 'the existing framework of the Cohesion Policy addresses to a sufficient degree the needs of industrial regions undergoing restructuring in some of the new Member States'. Asked about the demand by some net contributor Member States to set an upper limit on the EU budget of 1% GDP for 2007-2013, she said that the 'political aims and expectations of the Union must be matched by adequate means, including financial resources. This is the reason why the Commission adopted on 14 July 2004 an ambitious financial proposal fixing the Community budget on average at 1.14% of the EU's GNI (in terms of payments) over the period 2007-2013. A ceiling of around 1% GNI would jeopardise the existing levels of EU policies and undermine the implementation of the new priorities… Under such a scenario, the EU would have to drastically decrease cohesion support in the Member States in the face of major problems of lagging development, economic restructuring, unemployment and social exclusions, as well as the statistical effect of enlargement; reduce support for rural development…: reduce its efforts in terms of external aid; and retreat from commitments it has already made, its new neighbourhood policy or justice and security tasks, and jeopardise further enlargement.'' On the revision of regional state aid guidelines, 'different hypotheses are being examined in partnership with Member States, including the possibility to grant special treatment to very sparsely populated areas… I consider that a greater coherence between competition and cohesion policies will contribute to improving their effectiveness and impact.'