Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-19-Speech-3-078"
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"en.20010919.7.3-078"2
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"Mr President, I do not think anything impressively new can come out of this debate on regional policy quite simply, in my personal opinion, because the time is not right, it is not newsworthy, if you like. In all events, given that many of the Members are interested in this particular subject and given that regional policy accounts yet again for 35% of the budget, this confirms, I think, just how important it is to the European Union and, in this sense, there is perhaps some point to the debate.
The second point I wish to make is that perhaps it would be a good idea at some point – and this is certainly the intention of the Committee on Regional Policy – to discuss the state of progress of projects and programmes under the Community Support Framework in individual countries, because I personally am not at all convinced that everything is going swimmingly in every country, not through any fault of the Commission's, but through the fault of certain Member States. I do not wish to speak of dramatic delays but I am sure that certain countries are having problems.
As far as the future of cohesion policy is concerned, a debate was started following the second cohesion report by the European Commission and I think that certain conclusions are already obvious, that is, that far more regions will need to be covered, that in regions in the Member States which are already covered there will appear to be an artificial increase in GNP, which does not mean that they will automatically become rich, as the Commissioner has said, and that it goes without saying that more appropriations are needed but that it does not go without saying that it will be easy to find these appropriations.
As far as I can see, the conclusions are more or less obvious. First, we must not leave things in the lap of the Gods, we must not take decisions at the eleventh hour, because we could bring the European Union to what may well be an explosive situation. Secondly, we need to concentrate from 2006 onwards on those in real need. Thirdly, we must not create shock waves in regions which stop being covered, because that will give rise to euro-scepticism in these regions. Having said which, I have two unpleasant things to say, one of which is unpleasant for the poorer countries and the other of which is unpleasant for the richer countries.
For the poorer countries, I think that we need to find ways of making the most of appropriations by introducing suitable mechanisms, incentives and, if necessary, sanctions so that the money actually goes somewhere. And for the richer countries, we need to rethink the overall logic of the Community budget so as to find a way of increasing appropriations, because there will be a huge increase in requirements and regional policy will, as the Commissioner has said, have no credibility whatsoever if we fall below a certain point."@en1
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