Cohesion post-2020: Priorities and Timetable, including State of play of reflections and questions for debate
Regarding objectives of EU Commissioner for her 5-year mandate:
There is one, and one single, absolute priority: ensure that investments reach the real economy; that they result, as soon as possible, in growth and jobs for the millions of Europeans who are today unemployed.
Consequently, all energies, all efforts are now devoted to supporting initiatives that embed a great potential for growth and jobs, such as the EU 2020 Strategy, the Investment Plan for Europe of President Juncker, the Energy Union, or the Digital Single Market, to mention but a few.
Indeed, this is the only way to consolidate the incipient economic recovery, and get the EU out of the crisis.
However, if Policy has to produce a long-term impact on EU regions, it is necessary to couple these measures with further action.
In this context, three major areas have to be addressed:
1) First area of work: the improvement of institutional capacity and good governance, including support to Member States and regions that are facing particular difficulties in using cohesion Funds, as well as action on simplification for beneficiaries and reduction of administrative burden;
2) Second area of work: zero tolerance to fraud and error rate;
3) Third area of work: preparing the future of cohesion policy.
Regarding preparation of the future of cohesion policy:
The starting point of reflection on the post-2020 cohesion policy should be twofold:
A) on the one hand, it should be based on a sound and honest evaluation of successes and failures of cohesion policy over the last 2 decades;
B) on the other hand, it should build on the first lessons drawn from the new programmes, which have already been adopted under the reformed cohesion policy.
The Commission plans to adopt, by the end of 2015, a detailed report on the outcome of the negotiations of the partnership agreements and programmes, which will be presenting to the European Parliament and the Council.
However, some tentative conclusions may already be drawn:
I) First conclusion: programmes have really been designed in a way to achieve the goals of the EU 2020 Strategy. Following the reform of the Policy, programmes rely on a sound intervention logic, fulfil to a large extent ex ante conditionalities, and include robust indicators, that allow to measure the results of our investments. Furthermore, programmes concentrate financial support on a limited range of thematic objectives, which often goes beyond the minimum thresholds set out in the Regulations.
II) Second conclusion: smart specialisation, one of the true novelties of the new period regarding territorial cohesion, has been endorsed with unexpected enthusiasm by EU regions.An impressive 156 EU regions have registered so far in the EU platform for smart specialisation strategies, something that underlines the added value of this voluntary support instrument.
Moreover, 8% of the ERDF resources has been allocated to integrated approaches for sustainable urban development far more than the 5% share that was required. At the same time, there is still room for progress in the uptake of other tools, such as Integrated Territorial Investments and Community-led Local Development
III) Third and last conclusion: the use of financial instruments has substantially increased with regard to the previous period. Almost 24 billion euros are now planned to be invested through financial instruments, which means almost doubling the figures compared to the 7/13 period.
Regarding contributions from different sources, feeding EU Commission reflections:
i) First source: ex-post evaluations, analytical work, external studies and reports, in particular those provided by the academic community;
ii) Second source: contributions from the High-level Group on Simplification, our Lagging-regions Initiative and the Task Force on Better Implementation for the 7/13 period;
iii) Third source: first insights on the implementation of the new programmes, such as for example a high-level conference in early 2016 involving among others the European Parliament and the Seville Joint Research Centre, which will showcase a number of smart specialisation strategies.
Regarding tentative Timetable:
In this context, EU Commissioner’s intention is to involve, from the very beginning, all important stakeholders. Expect this post-2020 debate to reach its full speed towards the end of 2016.
It is necessary to work in cooperation with national and regional policymakers, the academic community, international institutions like the OECD the European Investment Bank or the World Bank, as well as NGOs and other stakeholders.
Commission will most likely table its ideas for the post-2020 period in the 7th Cohesion Report in 2017 which will be followed by a large public consultation.
Finally, Commission’s legislative proposals should be submitted in 2018.
Even if a number of factors are still unknown, and a lot will depend on the overall orientations of the EU budget for the post-2020 period, there are already a number of key questions that are likely to play a crucial role.
Regarding 10 key questions that are likely to play a crucial role:
a) The first and central question is how EU cohesion policy can best contribute to its two complementary objectives, the two sides of its coin: competitiveness and cohesion. What is the added value of cohesion policy in this context?
b) Second question: what is the best way to support the lagging regions, especially those which in spite of decades of EU and national support, did not converge towards the EU average?
c) Third question: how should the architecture of the policy be defined? Should cohesion policy continue to invest in the advanced regions, especially in the metropolitan ones, which are not only richer, but also privileged by private investors?
d) Fourth question: what is the best use of cohesion policy funds to stimulate investment in Europe? Which form of support is most efficient: grants, repayable assistance, financial instruments, or their combination? Should the share of financial instruments in EU funds be further increased?
e) Fifth question: how can cohesion policy investment best contribute to overarching European priorities, while keeping its territorial focus? Should we pay a more specific attention to certain geographical areas?
f) Sixth question: how could cohesion policy address new or growing challenges (such as, for instance, energy security or migration)?
g) Seventh question: what should be the role of urban dimension in cohesion policy? Where can EU action bring most added value? On the contrary, how can cohesion policy better support growth, jobs and innovation outside heavily populated areas?
h) Eighth question: how can we further simplify the implementation of the policy for beneficiaries? How can cohesion policy stimulate better national and regional governance? Should the shared management model be revised? Should there be any kind of conditionality regarding quality of institutions?
i) Ninth question: should the allocation of cohesion policy funds continue to be based on GDP per head, or rather on other indicators capturing social progress?
l) Last question: what form should take the contribution / integration of cohesion policy to the EU’s economic governance and structural reform agenda?
