Brussels, 03/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - Always mindful of the European Parliament regional development committee's opinion on current issues in regional and cohesion policy, Commissioner Danuta Hübner took stock, on Wednesday afternoon, of preparations on the 4th Report on Cohesion. This report is likely to be adopted by the College of Commissioners on 30 May and presented to the parliamentary committee by the commissioner herself so that MEPs can give their opinion on 7 June. It will then be debated at the Cohesion Forum in Brussels on 27-28 September. As Ms Hübner said: “The adoption of the 4th Report on Cohesion is only the end of the beginning of the consultation process”. After giving a brief overview of the contents, Ms Hübner took stock of the situation with regard to the submission by member states of their National Strategic Reference Frameworks (NSRF) and their Operational Programmes (OP), the last decisions on which she hoped would come before the end of July (see, among others, EUROPE 9415 and 9399). She also outlined the priority sectors for investment and set out the political priorities in terms of cohesion in 2008. Ms Hübner then announced the German presidency's invitation to a conference to be held in Hof (Bavaria) on 9 May to mark the launch of the European Structural Funds programmes 2007-2013. German Federal Finance Minister Michael Glos, Polish and Czech Regional Policy Ministers Grazyna Gesicka and Jiri Cunek, German Ministers-President Edmund Stoiber and Georg Milbrandt, as well as ministers and secretaries of state from Bulgaria, Austria, Lithuania, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia and Slovenia, and the commissioner herself will attend this conference.
4th Report on Cohesion: Ms Hübner said that the report: - will contain a résumé of the different analyses on the disparities in the enlarged EU, and on the contribution of Cohesion and other EU and national policies to cohesion, including some preliminary assessment of member states' NSRFs; - will carry a thorough analysis of the disparities in the EU27 in the last decade on the basis of a large set of indicators which present a picture of the level and trends of economic, social and territorial cohesion; - will use other indicators, beyond GDP, to estimate productivity, employment, demographic changes and migration flows, poverty, transport and ICT accessibility, environmental sustainability, energy, the flow of direct investment, education, innovation etc.
More particularly, the 4th report will ask a number of questions, on which the commissioner expects input from the European Parliament and its regional development committee, about the vision of the policy for the next decades, which will be dominated by new challenges such as climate change, energy, demographic changes, increased global competition and social exclusion. These questions are: (1) How are these global challenges going to impact on the future regional policy? What critical competencies will the regions need in order to remain ahead of the global game? (2) What changes will be needed in the conception and delivery of public policies to face these challenges? (3) How can policies better take into account the diversity of EU territories, such as least favoured areas, islands and rural areas, and also cities, declining industrial regions, and other areas with particular geographic characteristics? (4) What is the optimum division of responsibility between the Community, national and regional levels within a multi-level governance system? (5) What is the assessment of the management system of the Cohesion Policy after four generations of programmes? How can Cohesion Policy become more effective?
Political priorities of the Cohesion Policy for 2008: Ms Hübner expressed her hope that “2008 will be the first year of implementing the reformed Cohesion Policy on the ground, which will translate the Lisbon priorities into numerous concrete investment projects. For the first time in 2008, the Commission will include in its Annual Progress Report to the European Spring Council of March 2009, a section which shows how the new generation of Cohesion Policy programmes will contribute towards the implementation of National Reform Programmes of each member state. This shows that Cohesion Policy is now firmly integrated into this all-important process for the future prosperity of Europe,” she said. She announced that she would prepare and present a communication on the territorial dimension of the Cohesion Policy, which will look at the extent to which territorial specificities have been taken into account in the new programmes. In conclusion, Ms Hübner said she wanted to organise, with the regional development committee, a major conference in the first half of 2008 to promote the European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), “an instrument which you very much supported”. (gb)