Brussels, 27/09/2007 (Agence Europe) - The Fourth European Cohesion Forum kicked off on Thursday 27 September (see EUROPE 9509), attended by some 800 participants representing EU member states, Norway, Croatia, Turkey, the Republic of Macedonia, China and Brazil. The Forum will consider the future of the EU's Cohesion Policy post-2013 and will feed into debate surrounding the recent launch by the European Commission of a review of the EU's budget.
'A modern Europe in a modern world needs a modern budget,' explained the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, as he opened the Forum. Cohesion Policy has its own value added, he explained: 'by the end of the 2007-2013 period, for example, Cohesion Policy ought to have created 2 million jobs on top of those created by the Lisbon Strategy… European Cohesion Policy is enabling remarkable progress to be made towards convergence between member states… To take the example of Ireland, its GDP per head went from 102 to 145% of the EU average in 10 years thanks to Cohesion Policy and sound macroeconomic policy…. Economic and social cohesion is our shared priority… We have shared responsibilities which are the very essence of this policy. We are bound by a 'subsidiarity contract'. Each one must engage in a genuine partnership, but our contract must also place us under a common obligation to achieve results' for all citizens. Jose Manuel Barroso explained: 'I can assure you of one thing: my Commission will always be there to fulfil its primary task, which is to defend the general European interest…. it will remain also the guardian of the principle of a Europe based on solidarity.' He concluded by quoting the words of Robert Schuman in Schuman's book 'For Europe': 'In Europe, egoism no longer pays.' Michel Delebarre, the President of the Committee of the Regions, stressed the importance of territorial cohesion, which is gradually taking its place alongside economic and monetary cohesion. Dimitris Dimitriadis, the President of the European Economic and Social Committee, said the regions' potential had to be identified and it had to be understood that European citizens were to civil society what regions are to countries. Gerardo Galeote Quecedo, the President of the European Parliament's Regional Development Committee, called for reflection on the importance of environmental issues in the Cohesion Policy. Francisco Nunes Correia, the Portuguese environment and planning minister, called for a more flexibly implemented Cohesion Policy to adapt to change and more focussed to highlight the effectiveness of the results obtained. Correia added that the role of the Cohesion Policy in the development of territories in the EU had to be boosted. Subsidiarity and territoriality in public finance needed to be encouraged, he added and territorial cooperation needed to be stepped up. EU Commissioner Danuta Hubner also drew attention to the big challenges facing the future along with less obvious challenges like the ageing population, the struggle to improve the living environment and the quality of life. She said these challenges would re-draw the map of Europe. Ivan Zagar, Slovenian regional and local development minister, called or the Cohesion Policy to be an essential EU policy.
Danuta Hubner announced the adoption by the European Commission next week of a Green Paper on Territorial Cooperation. The Portuguese Presidency is preparing a follow-up action plan to match the territorial agenda adopted at the Leipzig Council in May 2007. In answer to a question from Thomas Andersson (Assembly of the Regions of Europe), Danuta Hubner said the challenges impacted differently on the regional and territorial bodies, and it was therefore not possible to have a Europe without the regions. The regional and territorial dimension would grow in importance in the future, she added. In answer to a question from Harman Vrehen, a representative of Dutch provinces, Michel Delebarre said he was certain that the more decentralised the implementation of the EU Cohesion Policy, the more effective it would be. Hungarian European Minister, Gabor Ivan, said Europe needed a budget inspired from policies rather than policies inspired from a budget. In response to Copa-Cogeca farm organisations' vice-president Rupert Huber, who expressed concern about the danger of re-nationalisation, Danuta Hubner drew attention to the way subsidiarity and re-nationalisation were often confused. It is possible to have more subsidiarity without re-nationalising, she pointed out, adding that she would be launching a public consultation exercise on the Cohesion Policy on Friday morning (28 September) following the Forum speech by Portuguese prime minister Jose Socrates. A Greek participant commented that challenges for the future like the environment were not future challenges but challenges of the present, to which Gerardo Galeote Quecedo replied by listing out two objectives to be pursued, namely reforming the 'out-of-date European Solidarity Fund' and setting up a European civil protection body. The report on this issue, requested of erstwhile Commissioner Michel Barnier, is still in deadlock at the Council, possibly because the dossier is being examined by finance ministers. In a resolution on the issue, the EP calls for an extraordinary Council meeting to be organised of finance, environment and regional policy ministers. The resolution asks the Slovenian Presidency to follow suit. (gb)