Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-19-Speech-3-076"
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".
Mr President, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I can personally bring you up to date, as I am sure you were hoping I would, on the great debate we started on 31 January in this very place, when I came to present you with the second report on economic and social cohesion that the Commission had just approved. On that occasion we, in addition to this presentation, started a debate that I said, and I am anxious to repeat on this very occasion, would be sincere, objective, without any issue being taboo, on one of the great Community policies at the very heart of the perception that we have of our European Union, for it relates to the policy of solidarity. Since 31 January, the debate has been stoked by new contributions. I am thinking in particular of the Cohesion Forum of 21 and 22 May, organised right here thanks to the European Parliament, in agreement with your President and with the support of my colleagues Anna Diamantopoulou and Franz Fischler.
My third point involves, whilst still talking about the future, the basis of the debate. On the subject of the basis of the debate, I would like to express, or state once more, three convictions. My first conviction is that within the coming context of this EU enlargement, the Member States and regions will feel the need for more Community cohesion policy and not less. I do not think that a form of unravelling or renationalisation of regional policy should be the way to respond to this requirement, to this need for cohesion in an enlarged EU where there will be – and the figures speak for themselves – more disparities than today. But I am equally resolutely in favour, while reaffirming this need for cohesion and planning these new cohesion and regional policies, to find, with your help, a way to achieve more decentralisation, simplification, and less bureaucracy. As far as we can, I will, using current European procedures, be anxious to search for and propose all means of moving further towards simplification and decentralisation.
My second conviction is financial in nature. Even if the financial debate is, strictly speaking, premature today, I am not the only one to consider, as I already said here in a personal capacity, that a financial effort that would globally represent any less than 0.45 % of EU GDP would, in my view, call into question the credibility of the future cohesion policy. I think therefore that I can state once more that, in my opinion, we cannot, without calling into question the credibility of this cohesion policy, fall below this threshold of 0.45 % which is a threshold universally accepted by the Heads of State and Government in Berlin.
My third conviction is that future cohesion policy should be fair and non-discriminatory. It should, therefore, be directed towards all regions that have structural difficulties of whatever nature and deal with questions in a heterogeneous fashion, that is to say, regions that are very backward in terms of development, that happen to be mostly in candidate countries, as well as regions within the current Fifteen that have not truly succeeded in the process of true convergence and for which it would be a good idea, at an opportune moment, to find some means of fair treatment, so that they are not penalised by a purely statistical or mechanical effect linked to a threshold or to new methods applied within the framework of the enlarged EU, in order to deal with the problems of certain areas which have particular handicaps or certain worrying social issues such as equal opportunities or the situation of urban areas.
In conclusion, Mr President, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that the report we shall put forward at the beginning of next year will take its inspiration from the results of the great debates held in the second half of this year. This is just the first of the meetings I have proposed to hold with you. There will be others before I present you with the third cohesion report in 2004. It is in this frame of mind that I shall be entirely available today and in the forthcoming weeks to listen to your suggestions, your recommendations and your criticisms.
At the same time, enlargement negotiations are progressing with all candidate countries. Enlargement, as you know, is one of the main themes of this debate. I would like to reiterate now that we must make a clear distinction between accession negotiations, which are based on the application of the
in new Member States, and the reform of structural policies for the period following 2006. The debate that I am inviting you to participate in mainly focuses on the period after 2006. We are, of course, not calling into question what current Member States receive from the Structural Funds from now until 2006.
Your Parliament, in requesting the Commission to give its opinion, wanted to take stock of this debate. I would like to thank you, therefore, for this opportunity and thus quickly mention certain points.
Firstly, the forum we held on 21 and 22 May was an opportunity for genuine debate, paving the way for other such moments. Since 31 January, the presentation of conclusions from the cohesion report has been, for both myself and my colleagues from the Directorate-General on Regional Policy, a priority. You can be sure that I will fully participate in this debate, week after week, at ground level. Last Friday in Helsinki, for example, I met the twenty Finnish regional Presidents. Tomorrow and the day after, in Oporto, I will attend an assembly of the conference of peripheral maritime regions, where we will discuss this future cohesion policy. In this way, the debate should spread, should move away from the political centre in such a way that it provides firstly the Member States and then Brussels with a certain number of ideas, requests, proof and guidelines. The 21 May forum was a very important moment for me and one that taught many lessons. It brought together a number of ministers, several former prime ministers, current prime ministers, representatives from regions and towns, not only from the fifteen Member States but also from the candidate countries, and many very high-level contributions. I would like to bring to light three aspects of these contributions and the discussion that Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck mentioned earlier, that I held in Namur with the fifteen ministers in charge of regional policy, on the invitation of the Belgian Presidency.
Firstly, the interest the future of this policy after 2006 arouses in all Member States and candidate countries, and the insistence of many on the truly political dimension of European solidarity. This is not solely a question of money. It is also the expression, as you very clearly stated, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, on behalf of the Presidency, of possibly the most concrete, the most precise and visible of the values upon which the European Union is founded. The proof that our Union is not just a large free trade area or single market, but also a community of solidarity that should one day be a political force.
Secondly, I have had no negative feedback regarding the enlargement process. There is concern, of course, but also a sense of the European Union’s historic obligation and interest in both new and old Member States in assisting in the long-lasting and balanced development of the whole European continent.
Thirdly, I have also measured the importance, in order for this debate to succeed, of not forgetting the needs of regions in States that are current members of the EU. I would like once again to state my conviction: we are not of the opinion that by admitting very poor regions in Eastern Europe – Estonia, Slovenia, Poland, Bulgaria and others – into the European Union, that regions that are poor or that are experiencing difficulties in the north, the centre, the south, not to mention the outermost regions, will become rich as if by waving a magic wand. After enlargement there will be problems and needs in the EU as it currently stands.
So, ladies and gentlemen, here we have what constitutes, when all is considered, strong encouragement for the maintenance of a cohesion policy that is suited to the new economic challenges and future geography of Europe.
My second point concerns procedures for the future. As you know, the Commission has committed itself, following requests from the Council in June, to provide it with a regular report on the development of its work on future cohesion policy. This information, which I must give to the Council, I must also, naturally, give to the European Parliament. I will propose to the Commission that it adopt the first of these regular interim reports at the very beginning of next year, in January, as soon as we have new statistics available. These statistics will explain, update and clarify the information that is already available in the cohesion report. I would like to point out that these new statistics, supplied by Eurostat, will involve, for example, the GDP per capita in 1999, and unemployment statistics for the year 2000. Therefore, the more up-to-date these figures are, the more serious and objective the debate will be. This interim report for the month of January will therefore contain an update of figures and analyses from the first part of the cohesion report devoted to the situation of regions, but it will also present the results of different studies that we have commissioned, as well as lessons learned from the great debates and seminars that have been organised. I can give more details regarding the additional studies commissioned: we have commissioned a study of the situation of the islands, as well as a study on the macroeconomic impact of Structural Funds. With regard to this macroeconomic study, I shall be very eager to provide you with information on the impact of these Structural Funds in terms of the direct impact of the use of these funds in net contributing countries. I also plan to commission an additional study on the situation of mountainous regions or regions that have long-term natural handicaps. In order to stimulate this debate, seminars will be organised during the first half of 2002 on each of the ten Community priorities that have been identified in the cohesion report, with the participation of experts from the Member States and regions who we shall invite in accordance with the various issues."@en1
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