30.12.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 498/47
25. therefore calls on the European Commission to draw up a new long-term European strategy for 2030 linking the imperatives of the green and digital transitions while strengthening the EU’s economic, social and territorial cohesion; stresses that this strategy should encompass all EU policies and funds supporting investment, in line with the ‘do no harm to cohesion’ principle introduced in the Cohesion Report;
26. regrets the lack of mechanisms for coordinating between and linking the RRF and 2021-2027 cohesion policy and the risk of overlaps or crowding out in the absence of a real mechanism to verify the additionality of funding from the RRF;
27. stresses the need to put European investment policies on an equal footing in order to avoid competition between the various European policies on the ground, as state aid rules currently form an obstacle to cohesion policy implementation, as compared to other policies;
28. in this context, calls on the European Commission to carry out a thorough analysis with a view to adapting the European legislative framework on State aid so that projects supported by the various European programmes and funds are subject to the same rules;
Better integrating cohesion policy into the European Semester 29. notes that the Cohesion Report fails to refer to the link between cohesion policy and the EU’s economic governance framework, despite the increased role of the European Semester in implementing cohesion policy for the 2021-2027 programming period;
30. welcomes the inclusion of a new section on territorial disparities in the country reports of the spring European Semester package published in May 2022, provided that this inclusion is aimed exclusively at strengthening territorial cohesion in Europe and not at imposing structural reforms completely disconnected from the long-term objectives of cohesion policy;
31. calls on the Commission to continue its efforts to increase the focus on territorial cohesion challenges affecting European areas and regions in the relevant country reports and country-specific recommendations;
32. calls for a more comprehensive reflection aimed at reforming the current framework for economic policy coordination so that the various phases of the European Semester can incorporate the ‘do no harm to cohesion’ principle and better involve local and regional authorities;
33. notes on the basis of the 8th Cohesion Report that the public investment deficit in the European Union constitutes a hidden debt; therefore reiterates its often-expressed call for a ‘golden co-financing rule’, whereby expenditure by Member States and local and regional authorities on co-financing under the Structural and Investment Funds is not counted as structural, public or similar expenditure as defined in the Stability and Growth Pact, in compliance with the EU co-financing limits that apply to it; stresses that public investments, such as those for sustainable ecological, digital and social transition and for maintaining European competitiveness, are important for future generations and should therefore be treated appropriately, including through a change in European accounting rules;
34. reiterates its call from previous opinions (1) for a code of conduct for the input of local and regional authorities in the context of the European Semester.
The code of conduct is necessary to make the European Semester more transparent, inclusive and democratic, but also more effective by involving local and regional authorities.
This increases ownership at local and regional level, thus improving the implementation of the desired economic reforms in the Member States;
(1)
Opinion of the Committee of the Regions — Recovery plan for Europe in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Recovery and Resilience Facility and Technical Support Instrument (OJ C 440, 18.12.2020, p. 160).
Opinion of the Committee of the Regions — The European semester and cohesion policy: aligning structural reforms with long-term investments (OJ C 275, 14.8.2019, p. 1).
Opinion of the Committee of the Regions ‘Improving the governance of the European Semester: a Code of Conduct for the involvement of local and regional authorities’ (OJ C 306, 15.9.2017, p. 24).