Regional and local leaders welcome Commission plans for cohesion funding

Regional and local leaders welcomed proposals to overhaul EU regional funding, currently worth 50 billion Euros a year. Committee of the Regions President Mercedes Bresso told EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn in Brussels today that they were 'a step in the right direction'. The Commission plans would benefit all regions, supporting their efforts to create better economic opportunities for all, improve living conditions and sustained development. At the same time, President Bresso rejected the idea of freezing regional aid for overspending countries. This would unfairly punish regional and local governments for decisions taken at national levels.

EU regional aid co-finances thousands of projects, from waste water plants to training for the unemployed and innovation clusters. Current funding programmes expire in 2013 and need to be revised. The European Commission's 5th cohesion report, presented last week, sets the tone for the reform debate. It underlines that future investments must be closely aligned to the objectives of the 'Europe 2020' strategy, and proposes stricter conditions as well as incentives for handling EU funds. To discuss how this impacts on regions and cities, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) brought together EU Regional Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn, CoR members and politicians from associations representing regional and local authorities on the occasion of a debate held today in Brussels at CoR headquarters.

Committee of the Regions President Mercedes Bresso said that the report "addresses many of the issues we flagged up in the last couple of years." The CoR President hailed the EU executive's plea to continue to make cohesion money available to all regions in the future, and lauded plans to coordinate the various EU funds better. On one of the Commission's most controversial proposals, Bresso stressed: "Regions must not be punished for the failures of their national governments. Freezing EU funds for countries that breach the stability pact is not a solution. If anything, it will only worsen the situation in these regions." On the idea of 'merit points' that could lead to extra EU regional funding, she added: "In principle I accept the idea of a 'European reserve' for EU money. This extra cash could be awarded half way through the programmes, to respond to new challenges. But I am not convinced that we should reallocate funds on the basis of how much they contributed to the 'Europe 2020' targets."

News source: EU Press Room link: article