Mr President, when asked which of the policies of the European Union affects you most, makes you feel more like a European citizen, European citizens refer to regional policy, cohesion policy, the policy that plays a central role in the process of European integration and in supporting the single market and economic and monetary union. In particular, we must stress the importance of this policy for boosting cohesion in an enlarged European Union, which will experience a particular increase in disparities between levels of development in its regions and the need to make resources available to match the new requirements. It is of vital importance to bridge these differences by fostering long-term, balanced and polycentric development throughout our European Union. Following the communication by the European Commission, therefore, our committee, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, held extensive discussions which resulted in its underlining certain – what it considered to be – basic points in connection with regional and cohesion policy. Thus it: - endorses the Commission’s stance of rejecting attempts at the renationalisation of regional and cohesion policy and its determination to maintain a genuine Community policy; - supports the Commission’s view on the application of EU regional and cohesion policy to all the regions of the EU which, of course, meet the relevant criteria; - reiterates the need for greater coordination between regional and cohesion policy and policies with a significant impact on the land, such as agriculture, fishing, transport, research and technology, education and training and information society policy; - stresses the need for a link between future regional policy and European competition policy; - repeats Parliament’s position that the current threshold of 0.45% of Community GDP allocated to the cohesion policy is a threshold below which it is not possible to fall; - emphasises the fact that the Commission ought to pay special attention to those regions suffering from the statistical effects of enlargement and to treat them as regions similar to Objective 1 areas; - calls for the European Commission to pay special attention to cases where regions have naturally emerged from Objective 1 status by their own efforts but which also require adequate financial support to consolidate their upward progress; - considers that special attention should be paid to the ultra-peripheral regions and sparsely populated areas and the least favoured islands; - accepts that the threshold of 75% of the average GDP in the Member States of the European Union must remain the essential criterion for eligibility for Objective 1, draws attention to the vital role played by the Cohesion Fund, especially for the new Member States and supports the idea of a new Objective 2 to foster regional competitiveness in accordance with the Lisbon and Göteborg guidelines; - considers that regional areas in which permanent geographical handicaps, island or mountain areas, areas of low population density etc., which are not eligible for support from other Structural Funds, should be eligible for support from a reformed Objective 2 or from some other new specific Community initiative; - backs the Commission in its regional approach to development, particularly the idea of a single programme and a single financial package per region; - stresses the need for consistency in the policy for regional cooperation in its three dimensions, namely cross-border (land or sea), trans-national and inter-regional; - finally, endorses the Commission’s main goal of simplifying the rules for implementing regional policy, reiterates Parliament’s request for tripartite contracts between the Commission, Member State and the region and stresses once again its conviction that it is both necessary and feasible to achieve a proper balance between simplification and scrutiny. Our parliamentary committee calls on the European Commission, and the leading Commissioner Mr Barnier in particular, to continue their efforts in the direction indicated by the European Union compass and the current climate. It also calls on plenary to accept our motion for a resolution. I should like to thank in particular all those who helped complete my report, Members and assistants alike, and all of you contributing today. I should also like to declare that I believe in the ancient Greek proverb ‘good things come in small packages’.

Political group: PSE