EN Official Journal of the European Union CE 117/38

Tuesday 24 March 2009

Regional policy best practice and obstacles to use of Structural Funds

P6_TA(2009)0156

European Parliament resolution of 24 March 2009 on best practices in the field of regional policy and obstacles to the use of the Structural Funds (2008/2061(INI))

2010/C 117 E/07

The European Parliament,

having regard to the URBACT Programme, carried out as part of the URBAN initiative, which is facilitating and developing good practices and exchanges of experience involving more than 200 European Union cities,

having regard to its resolution of 21 October 2008 on governance and partnership at national and regional levels and a basis for projects in the sphere of regional policy (1),

having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 of 11 July 2006 laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund (2),

having regard to Regulation (EC) No 1080/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2006 on the European Regional Development Fund (3),

having regard to Articles 158 and 159 of the EC Treaty,

having regard to the Presidency Conclusions of the European Council held in Lisbon on 23 and 24 March 2000,

having regard to the Commission Communication of 19 June 2008 entitled ‘Fifth progress report on economic and social cohesion: Growing regions, growing Europe’ (COM(2008)0371),

having regard to the Commission Communication of 6 October 2008 entitled ‘Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion: Turning territorial diversity into strength’ (COM(2008)0616),

having regard to the Commission Communication of 8 November 2006 entitled ‘Regions for economic change’ (COM(2006)0675),

having regard to the study by its Structural and Cohesion Policies Policy Department entitled ‘Good practice in the field of regional policy and obstacles to the use of the structural funds’,

having regard to the public hearing of 17 July 2008 organised by its Committee on Regional Development,

having regard to Rule 45 of its Rules of Procedure,

having regard to the report of the Committee on Regional Development and the opinion of the Committee on Budgets (A6-0095/2009),

A. whereas cohesion policy is among the most important policy areas in the European Union, not only in terms of its budget but also and in particular because it is an essential pillar in the process of European integration and owing to its importance for the social, economic and territorial cohesion of the European Union and the development of its 268 regions, reducing development deficits and disparities and improving life for all EU citizens,

B. whereas the regions of the European Union are confronted with broadly similar challenges, though their impact differs greatly from region to region, given their specificities as regards their character (for example, island or mountain regions) and population: globalisation and the accelerated economic restructuring that goes with it, the opening up of trade relations, the consequences of the technological revolution, and climate change, the development of the knowledge-based economy, demographic change, depopulation and the rise in immigration,

C. whereas the best results, strengthening the knowledge base and improving competition, are often achieved in projects by means of cooperation between the public sector, businesses, the education sector and local stakeholders,

D. whereas cohesion policy cannot develop its full potential to meet these challenges whilst potential applicants for aid are faced with major obstacles in relation to utilising the European Union’s structural funds, including: — excessive bureaucracy; — too many complex regulations, which in certain cases are available on-line only, thereby excluding many potential beneficiaries of these funds from access to these resources; — frequent modification, by certain Member States, of eligibility criteria and requisite documentation; — lack of transparency in decision-making processes and co-financing schemes and delays in payments; — slow and cumbersome centrally managed administration in Member States and the application of rules in a way which adds to the existing bureaucracy, and leads to inadequate provision of information; — inadequate decentralised administrative capacity and different models of regional administration in Member States, which prevent the existence of comparative data and the exchange of best practices; — inadequate arrangements for interregional coordination; — lack of a functioning cooperation scheme between national, regional and local authorities,

E. whereas a number of the current errors in the field of cohesion policy can be traced back to these existing obstacles,

F. whereas the delays in implementing structural policy are due in part to the excessive rigidity of procedures and that, consequently, consideration should be given to simplifying those procedures and clearly dividing responsibilities and competences among the EU, the Member States and regional and local authorities,

1. underlines that, although the added value of disseminating best practices among the broader public in terms of improved communication and cost-benefit has to be taken into account, attempts to introduce those practices in EU regional policy should be directed chiefly to Managing Authorities, guiding them to draw up rules governing access to structural resources, so that exchanges of information and experience can contribute to a substantive improvement in project quality, by providing solutions to joint problems and choosing more effective and targeted interventions;

2. Points to the need to simplify the procedures governing the implementation of Structural Funds projects and programmes, particularly as regards management and control systems; welcomes, therefore, in this regard, the regulatory revision of the Structural Funds package in response to the current financial crisis; eagerly awaits the further Commission proposals in this area, to be announced within the next few months;

Removal of obstacles

3. Calls on the Commission, with a view to removing the above obstacles, inter alia: — to gear the evaluation criteria for projects co-financed by the Structural Funds of the European Union to the long term; — not to assess innovative projects using the same evaluation criteria as apply to other types of projects, but to develop specific evaluation criteria - tailored to the innovative nature of the projects - that in essence allow for a higher failure rate; — to reduce the maximum period for which project documents must be stored, for the purposes of monitoring by the Commission, from the current ten years to three years; — to draw up special policy measures and new qualitative indicators for regions with specific geographical characteristics, such as mountainous and sparsely populated regions, and the outermost, border and island regions, and accordingly to adapt the territorial scale of policy interventions, with the aim of promoting territorial cohesion in the European Union; — to simplify the control system and seek to introduce a single control system; — to adapt standards in the field of public contracts with a view to simplification and harmonisation; — to coordinate the rules on cost eligibility with the Member States; — to ensure advance payments to beneficiaries to a greater extent; — to improve coordination of measures carried out and co-financed under the cohesion policy and under CAP II (Development of rural areas); — to make technical aid programmes more flexible; — to introduce mechanisms to promote network cooperation and facilitate group project management; — to lighten the administrative burden created by these projects and to keep it in proportion to the size of a project; — to simplify, clarify and accelerate project practices and make them more result-oriented; — to actively encourage Member States to set-up an effective system of cooperation and responsibility sharing between national, regional and local levels; — to facilitate access to funds through closer cooperation with national governments to reduce processing time; — to prepare a timetable to take active steps to remove obstacles and improve the accessibility to funds;

4. Recommends that the Commission go further and develop a concerted, generally accessible, approach to the interregional exchange of best practices, with a view to enabling actors involved in cohesion policy to draw on the experiences of others;

5. Points out expressly that identifying best practices must not lead to additional red tape for applicants and project promoters;

6. Demands that bureaucracy in the use of Structural Funds be kept to a minimum, and not needlessly increased by individual conditions imposed by the Member States;

7. Reiterates its support for practice aimed at ensuring that each Member State produces an annual national declaration of assurance covering Community funds coming under the shared management arrangement, and calls for this to become standard practice;

General and subject-specific criteria for identifying best practices

8. Welcomes the approach laid down in the context of the Regions for Economic Change initiative, firstly, to identify and to publicise best practices with the annual award of ‘REGIO STARS’ and, secondly, to set up a website for best practices; draws attention to the limited effectiveness of an Internet site alone;

9. Criticises the lack of transparency in the Commission's objective bases for identifying best practices;

10. Calls on the Commission, in the light of the widespread use of the term ‘best practices’, and also the frequent parallel use of the terms ‘good practices’ or ‘success stories’, to draw up a set of criteria tailored specifically to cohesion policy that will enable these ‘best practices’ to be distinguished from those applying to other projects;

11. Recommends that the Commission take account of the following points in identifying best practices: — project quality; — assurance of partnership principle; — sustainability of the measure concerned; — positive contribution to equal opportunities and gender mainstreaming; — innovativeness of the project; — integrated approach between the EU's sectoral and territorial policies; — effective use of resources; — duration of project before implementation; — implementation of the project on time and to plan; — significant driving force for the region or the EU overall; — impact on employment; — facilities for SMEs; — the facilitation of networking and territorial cooperation between regions; — transferability of the project, that is, its applicability in other regions of the European Union; — added value of activities, within European Union policies; — positive impact of the project on citizens, regions and Member States and society as a whole;

12. Stresses that all the criteria for highlighting best practices must be clearly measurable and reliable, so as to avoid friction, undesired effects and subjective judgements which may undermine the entire project grading procedure based on these criteria; calls, therefore, on the Commission clearly to describe the content of these criteria and how they should be implemented;

13. Recommends that, on the basis of analysis of a large number of projects from many EU regions, additional factors be taken into account for the identification of best practices in cohesion policy areas that are of particular importance for the development of specific regions and of the EU as a whole and that display a marked variety of approaches to implementation;

14. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Research and development/innovation’: — qualitatively significant investment in science and research; — links between industry, academia and research institutes with a special emphasis on strengthening SMEs, not least as a means of levering territorial development; — links between science and research institutes; — development and/or innovation in respect of forward-looking technologies and/or practical applications for them; — bringing new technologies to bear in traditional sectors; — application to the business world; — solutions in key EU sectors, for example, environment and energy;

15. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Environment, climate and sustainable energy policy’: — protective measures for areas at particular risk, tailored to those areas (sensitivity) in particular waters; — conservation and efficient use of scarce resources; — responsible approach to the use of resources; — measures to address energy poverty; — significant increase in energy efficiency; — significant reduction in energy consumption; — increased share of renewable energy sources; — measures to reduce CO2 emissions; — methods and/or procedures which conserve scarce or endangered resources;

16. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Creation of high-quality jobs’: — improvement in working conditions; — increase in the number of high-quality jobs; — forward-looking sustainable job creation; — guarantee of equal access to the labour market for both genders; — increased productivity; — improved competitiveness; — creation of jobs that are not tied to a particular location, such as e-business; — measures to achieve greater specialisation of the workforce; — use of modern information and communication media; — reconciliation of family and working life; — measures aimed at the most vulnerable sectors of the population (for example, young people, women, persons with disabilities, immigrants, the long-term unemployed, unemployed persons aged over 45, those without any formal education); — improved accessibility and availability of transport, telecommunications, education and health services;

17. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Lifelong learning’: — qualitative improvement of training standards and quantitative increase in the training on offer, particularly with regard to the opportunities for sections of the population who are most disadvantaged or most at risk (for example, young people, women, persons with disabilities, immigrants, the long-term unemployed, unemployed persons aged over 45, people without schooling); — the close link between education, training and working life; — training projects that are tailored to requirements in terms of both quality and quantity; — introduction and use of modern technologies and procedures; — measures to stimulate and maintain willingness to undertake training; — increased take-up of training opportunities; — life-long language training;

18. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Integrated urban development’: — long-term integrated policy for local public transport, pedestrians, cyclists and car use with a view to effective integration between the various modes of transport, both public and private; — efficient traffic management; — promotion of the economic development of cities; — increase in entrepreneurial investment, measures to stimulate and secure employment with a special emphasis on youth employment and entrepreneurship - and to improve social life; — regeneration and integration of neighbourhoods in decline and de-industrialised areas; — improved quality of life in urban areas; for example the availability and accessibility of public services; — creation of green spaces and recreational areas and increased water and energy efficiency, in particular in the housing sector; — facilities for people with disabilities; — promotion of actions aimed at binding the population, in particular young people, to their cities; — taking account of the living environment: urban, suburban and nearby rural environment; — reduction of excessive land usage by much greater redevelopment of waste land and avoiding urban sprawl; — better accessibility of urban and transport amenities for persons with reduced mobility; — increasing the interaction between towns and rural areas; — employment of an integrated approach;

19. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Demographic change’: — universal access to services; — enhanced measures to attract skilled workers; — enhanced involvement of the most vulnerable sectors through improved education and training; — measures on flexible working time; — measures to facilitate the life of working parents allowing reconciliation between family and working life; — measures to promote the smooth integration of migrants; — the special needs of persons with disabilities and senior citizens; — contribution towards the maintenance of population levels (in areas suffering from depopulation);

20. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Cross-border cooperation’: — increase in quality and quantity of cross-border contacts; — creation of permanent networks or of long-term cooperation schemes; — harmonisation of different systems and procedures; — involvement of new partners; — establishment of financial independence; — permanent cross-border knowledge transfer and exchange; — joint exploitation of potential in partner regions; — infrastructure connections between partner regions;

21. Recommends that account be taken of the following factors for the area ‘Public-private partnerships’: — qualitative improvement of project implementation in terms of effectiveness and profitability; — faster project implementation; — transparent risk-spreading mechanism; — better project management; — increased participation of local and regional authorities and players in public-private partnerships; — clear and transparent rules on conduct with regard to the activities of public-sector bodies and enterprises;

22. Calls on the Commission to take account of the need to promote best practices as regards financial arrangements, in particular those of public/private partnerships and those supported by the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund;

23. Is aware that it is exceptionally difficult for a project cumulatively to meet all of the above criteria; calls on the Commission, therefore, before applying these criteria, to list them in order of priority and to determine those that represent a higher priority, so as to make it easier to designate noteworthy projects as best practices; stresses the need to use the commonly agreed criteria on best practices in an open and transparent way, which will allow a better management, acceptance and comparability of best practices and prevention of confusion with other similar terms;

24. Calls on the Commission, with a view to the future use of the terms ‘best practices’, ‘good practices’ and ‘success stories’, to work out a clear and transparent subdivision or gradation of these terms for the purposes of project description;

Exchange of best practices

25. Calls on the Commission to organise and coordinate the exchange of best practices through a network of regions, and to create a public website containing key information about the projects in all Community languages for this purpose;

26. Recommends that the Commission set up within the current administrative framework a specific office in the Directorate-General for Regional Policy to organise, in cooperation with this network of regions, the evaluation, collection and exchange of best practices and to act as a permanent contact point for both the supply and the demand side, with the aim of establishing a long-term, continuous, reliable and successful exchange of best practices in the field of cohesion policy; calls on the Commission to disseminate this good-practice culture to all its departments;

27. Proposes within this framework that the evaluation mechanisms should study and take into account tried and trusted methodologies which have already been implemented; believes that particular emphasis should be given to cooperation with a network of regional authorities and specialised agencies which are the key source for the primary material of best practices for evaluation;

28. Points out that, while the European Union provides funding and good practices, it is for national, regional and local office holders to capitalise on them; welcomes in this connection the establishment of an Erasmus programme for local and regional elected representatives;

29. Recommends that the Commission use the available tools of the Committee of the Regions, in particular the Lisbon Monitoring Platform and the Subsidiarity Monitoring Network in order to exchange best practices between regions and Member States with a view to identifying and jointly determining the objectives, subsequently planning actions and, finally, undertaking a comparative evaluation of the results of cohesion policy;

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30. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.

(1) Texts adopted, P6_TA(2008)0492.

(2) OJ L 210, 31.7.2006, p. 25.

(3) OJ L 210, 31.7.2006, p. 1.