EN Official Journal of the European Union C 115/1

Opinion of the Committee of the Regions on the Communication from the Commission Cohesion Policy in Support of Growth and Jobs: Community Strategic Guidelines, 2007-2013

(2006/C 115/01)

THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS,

HAVING REGARD TO the Communication from the Commission: Cohesion Policy in Support of Growth and Jobs: Community Strategic Guidelines, 2007-2013 (COM(2005) 299 final);

HAVING REGARD TO the decision of the European Commission on 5 July 2005, under the first paragraph of Article 265 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, to consult it on this matter;

HAVING REGARD TO the decision of its President of 19 May 2005 to instruct the Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy to draw up an opinion on this issue;

HAVING REGARD TO the Communication from the Commission: Third progress report on cohesion: Towards a new partnership for growth, jobs and cohesion COM(2005) 192 final (SEC(2005)632);

HAVING REGARD TO its opinion on the Communication from the Commission: Third report on economic and social cohesion — A new partnership for cohesion, convergence, competitiveness and cooperation, COM(2004) 107 final (CdR 120/2004 final) (1);

HAVING REGARD TO its opinion on the financial perspectives — Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Building our common future — Policy challenges and budgetary means of the enlarged Union 2007-2013 (COM(2004) 101 final — CdR 162/2004 fin) (2);

HAVING REGARD TO its opinion on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Regional Development Fund (COM(2004) 495 final — 2004/0167 (COD) — CdR 233/2004 fin) (3);

HAVING REGARD TO its opinion on the Proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a Cohesion Fund (COM(2004) 494 final — 2004/0166 (AVC) — CdR 234/2004 fin) (4);

HAVING REGARD TO its opinion on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Social Fund (COM(2004) 493 final — 2004/0165 (COD) — CdR 240/2004 fin) (5);

HAVING REGARD TO its opinion on the Proposal for a Council Regulation laying down general provisions on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund (COM(2004) 492 final — 2004/0163 (AVC) — CdR 232/2004 fin) (6);

HAVING REGARD TO the Birmingham declaration adopted by the CoR bureau on 2 September 2005 on Cohesion policy and the national framework plans for implementing the Lisbon strategy;

HAVING REGARD TO its draft opinion on this issue (CdR 140/2005 rev. 1) adopted on 30 September 2005 by the Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy (rapporteur: Mr Alain Rousset, President of the Aquitaine Regional Council (FR/PES));

adopted the following opinion at its 62nd plenary session, held on 16 and 17 November 2005 (meeting of 16 November).

I. General comments

The Committee of the Regions:

1) takes note of the Community Strategic Guidelines (CSGs) adopted by the European Commission on 5 July 2005;

2) welcomes the clearly stated priority, prompted mainly by the accession of ten new Member States, to focus on regions lagging behind, by means of the Convergence Objective; the EU as a duty to show solidarity towards these regions and to speed up their economic and social development, as has been done through previous generations of programmes;

3) also welcomes the commitment to pursuing an EU cohesion policy for all of Europe's regions, by means of the future competitiveness and employment objective; but stresses that under this objective, priority must be given to peripheral and/or less competitive regions, in order to bridge the gap, in terms of development, both between and within regions; in fact, the principal function of cohesion policy is to correct regional and local imbalances and not to support the most competitive regions;

4) regrets that the CSGs do not distinguish between the priorities for the Convergence regions and those for the regions coming under the future competitiveness and employment objective; the competitiveness and employment objective must be targeted at projects aimed at increasing regional competitiveness (research, innovation, education/training, accessibility/transport, ICTs, and services of general interest) and must steer clear of the often-criticised current practice of spreading resources too thinly;

5) welcomes the fact that cohesion policy is now focused on the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy at regional level, but stresses the absolute need for cohesion policy to be used primarily as an instrument for correcting development disparities at regional and local levels;

6) emphasises the fundamental importance of this document for the development of EU cohesion policy for the period 2007-2013 and for the follow-up of this policy at EU level with regard to the stated objectives and priorities;

7) emphasises the need for regional and cohesion policy to be guided by a strategic EU document, such as that which has been in existence for several years for the European Employment Strategy;

8) is concerned about the gap between the document's stated ambitions and the low levels of funding which certain Member States wish to allocate to them under the 2007-2013 financial perspectives;

9) is also concerned about the use that will be made of this document by Member States, particularly if the financial perspectives are not equal to the task in hand;

10) acknowledges that while the subsidiarity principle must be respected by leaving Member States free to adapt the CSGs to their own particular situation and needs, it is important that Member States do not use EU Structural Funds to finance their own national policies;

11) is concerned by the risk that such a drift could pose to the longer term continuation of a genuine EU cohesion policy that is one of the most publicly visible of all EU policies;

12) therefore regrets that the European Commission, under pressure from Member States, has decided not to append the national versions of this document, which are based on the results from the territorial research programme undertaken by Member States via the European Spatial Planning Observatory Network (ESPON) and which allowed the strategic coherence between EU and national objectives regarding territorial cohesion to be verified.

1. The Community Strategic Guidelines (CSGs) and the Lisbon Strategy

The Committee of the Regions

1.1 reaffirms its overall support for the Lisbon Strategy and notes the European Commission's intention to effectively structure the CSGs around this Strategy but deeply regrets the fact that the environment and the Gothenburg Strategy are relegated to second place;

1.2 agrees with the three main priorities proposed by the European Commission (making Europe and its regions more attractive places to invest in, improving knowledge and innovation as key factors for growth and helping to create more and better jobs);

1.3 regrets, however, the lack of any reference to the concept of balanced competitiveness within these main priorities; reaffirms its commitment to ensuring that the same level of attention is given to the three pillars of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental);

1.4 emphasises once again that the main weakness of the Lisbon Strategy, as of the European Employment Strategy, lies in its implementation, particularly by Member States; deeply regrets, in particular, the lack of a truly devolved approach and the fact that the coordination method has not succeeded in involving local and regional authorities; regrets that cooperation on this front has remained essentially intergovernmental, whilst ignoring the increased role played by social partners in the Lisbon process;

1.5 therefore welcomes the European Commission's desire for local and regional authorities to play a central role in implementing this Strategy and the fact that it links this with cohesion policy in the pursuit of its objectives;

1.6 insists therefore on the need that the CSGs, on which Member States and regions will set out their own strategic priorities for cohesion policy, are incorporated into the Lisbon National Action Programmes and that the relevance of the regional and local levels to territorial strategic development is emphasised;

1.7 hopes that beyond the Convergence regions — the priority areas for EU intervention — Structural Funds will be provided under the competitiveness and employment objective aimed at speeding up, as a matter of priority, the development of peripheral and less competitive regions with the emphasis on research, innovation, education and training and accessibility (transport, ICTs, and services of general interest); each European region must have the capacity to establish its own Lisbon agenda at regional and local levels;

1.8 warns against the use of EU funds for the financing or co-financing of national or EU policies (Trans-European transport networks, the Framework Programme for Research and Development, the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme, etc.), which are designed purely for national competitiveness, with no regard for territorial cohesion and which therefore do not form part of cohesion policy; while it is quite legitimate and important for regions lagging behind to be able to use the Structural Funds for this kind of financing, it would be detrimental, however, if regions eligible for the future employment and competitiveness objective did not concentrate their funds on genuine regional development priorities;

1.9 reaffirms its call for private co-financing to continue to be allowed in future;

1.10 points out that while in the current programming period sectoral policies must contribute to cohesion policy, the situation will be reversed from 2007 when cohesion policy will be required to contribute to sectoral policy;

1.11 therefore hopes that the structuring of the CSGs around the Lisbon Strategy does not provide an opportunity for Member States to appropriate cohesion policy for financing their own national policies, with no regard for the principles of economic, social and territorial cohesion applying to their territory;

1.12 thus warns against the potential risk of renationalising EU cohesion policy;

1.13 therefore calls for the CSGs to set clear and focused objectives regarding territorial cohesion, so as to minimise such a risk.

2. The territorial dimension of cohesion policy

The Committee of the Regions

2.1 regrets that the territorial dimension of cohesion policy is not covered by either a separate priority or a horizontal priority overlapping with the three main priorities defined in the document and that it is not the governing principle of all of the CSGs as is the case with economic and social cohesion;

2.2 reiterates that the territorial dimension is the very foundation of regional and cohesion policy;

2.3 is therefore very surprised that the chapter on the territorial dimension focuses only on cities and rural areas and is far less a priority here than it was in the European Commission's stated ambitions in its third report on cohesion, while the regional process allows both the authorities and the public to measure the impact of EU policies on the ground; reemphasises the necessity to cover the urban dimension within regional programmes;

2.4 calls for the concepts of balanced competitiveness as defined by the Treaty on European Union,, and of polycentric Spatial Development Perspective, which ought to enable the type and scope of policies to be adapted to objective local competitiveness conditions, to be taken into account;

2.5 calls for the territorial dimension to include a specific paragraph concerning areas with permanent handicaps (islands, upland areas and areas of low population density), the outermost regions, vulnerable rural areas and urban areas in difficulty, and to deal with strengthening the link between urban and rural; it recognises the strategic importance of towns and urban areas in achieving the Lisbon objectives, with the aim of creating safe, cohesive and sustainable communities even in the most deprived urban areas;

2.6 awaits in this regard the publication of the European Commission Communication on the urban dimension of the strategic guidelines of the cohesion policy;

2.7 points out, more fundamentally, the commitment of regional and local authorities to the objective of territorial cohesion as a necessary complementary objective inextricably linked with that of economic and social cohesion;

2.8 regrets the general lack of emphasis on territorial cooperation within the document; is concerned by Member States' plans to allocate less funds towards this fundamental objective of regional and cohesion policy;

2.9 reaffirms its support for cross-border cooperation as an essential instrument of European integration; hopes that issues such as culture, the environment, exchanges of information between authorities, civil protection and health are included within this area;

2.10 recommends establishing real transnational cooperation, going beyond a basic level of cooperation between Member States for achieving the objectives — this kind of cooperation is instrumental in achieving territorial cohesion;

2.11 calls for transnational cooperation to become a strategic element in territorial structuring and interconnection; points out that the work carried out by ESPON contains many suggestions for focussing transnational cooperation around several priority themes; calls for a greater involvement of local and regional authorities not only in programme management but also in defining priority action areas;

2.12 calls on Member States to avoid reducing the budget proposed by the European Commission for transnational cooperation;

2.13 recommends giving more consideration to the interregional aspect and notes the vital importance of having a sufficient budget to meet the stated objectives.

3. Compatibility of financial resources with the stated objectives

The Committee of the Regions

3.1 points out, firstly, the need for the EU's budget to be equal to its ambitions and in particular to the objectives set at the Lisbon European Council;

3.2 is therefore concerned about the risk of a significant discrepancy between the stated strategic ambitions and the low level of funding which may ultimately be allocated in the light of the latest intergovernmental negotiations;

3.3 therefore regrets that the European Commission is not proposing to concentrate more on areas and regions on which EU intervention can have a real leverage effect;

3.4 considers, regarding the future competitiveness and employment objective, that there should be a distinction between the intervention criteria of the ERDF and those of the ESF, given that while the ESF is legitimately concerned with all the EU's regions, for obvious reasons of unemployment and social exclusion, ERDF intervention must take account of various territorial criteria when allocating funding;

3.5 therefore suggests that the first priority when allocating Structural Funds should be the least competitive, most disadvantaged regions, and that the basis for allocating them should be both the EU's criteria and a weighting system based on clear and objective territorial criteria;

3.6 finally, deeply regrets the failure to agree on the financial perspectives at the European Council of 16-17 June 2005; points out the risk that a prolonged absence of any agreement on this matter could pose to the preparation of the 2007-2013 programming period.

II. Recommendations

The Committee of the Regions

1. recognises the efforts made by the European Commission in presenting this strategic document, but wonders what use will be made of it by Member States;

2. reaffirms its support for prioritising the Convergence regions, prompted mainly by the accession of ten new Member States;

3. believes that regional and cohesion policy should not be limited to Member States financing the sectoral policies considered priorities under the Lisbon Strategy; in fact, the principal function of cohesion policy is to correct regional and local imbalances and not to support the most competitive regions;

4. is of the opinion that the success of the Lisbon Strategy depends first and foremost on how it is interpreted at regional and local levels;

5. hopes that eligible regions under the future competitiveness and employment objective can concentrate EU funding on the financing of real strategies for regional development, implemented at regional level;

6. is concerned by the failure to effectively take account of the territorial dimension, which is after all, the reason for the very existence of an EU cohesion policy;

7. therefore places the utmost importance on achieving the objective of territorial cohesion, which is particularly important in the context of an enlarged Europe;

8. calls for a better balance between, on the one hand, the need for competitiveness within the EU and its Member States and on the other, the need for territorial cohesion within the EU;

9. believes that this better balance involves making all EU regions eligible but also involves adding a genuine territorial dimension to the National Strategic Reference Frameworks (NSRFs) drawn up by Member States, in order to concentrate EU intervention on the peripheral and/or less competitive regions;

10. recommends giving greater importance to territorial cooperation generally and to transnational cooperation in particular, giving it a more strategic role in terms of the EU's territorial structuring and allocating sufficient financial resources for this;

11. reaffirms its support for the European Commission's proposals on the financial perspectives for the period 2007-2013; believes that the stated objectives within the Community Strategic Guidelines will not be achieved without an ambitious but realistic allocation of EU funding to enable the pursuit of a genuine regional and cohesion policy for the whole of the EU.

Brussels, 16 November 2005. The President of the Committee of the Regions Peter STRAUB

(1) OJ C 318, 22.12.04, p. 1.

(2) OJ C 164, 05.07.05, p. 4.

(3) OJ C 231, 20.09.05, p. 19.

(4) OJ C 231, 20.09.05, p. 35.

(5) OJ C 164, 05.07.05, p. 48.

(6) OJ C 231, 20.09.05, p. 1.