Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-06-Speech-3-313"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020206.12.3-313"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, I am deeply committed to the regional and cohesion policy, not only because I have the honour of directing this policy on behalf of the Commission and in conjunction with my colleagues, Franz Fischler and Anna Diamantopoulou, but also for another, more political reason, which is that I believe, as several of you have said, that the cohesion policy, which has grown in importance over a 15-year period, symbolises a certain concept of the European Union. It is the proof that the European Union is not merely a supermarket where we quite simply rely on the laws of supply and demand and on fiscal transfers in order to ensure solidarity or to avoid a two, three or four-speed development. It is the proof that we have agreed that we should share our financial resources and redistribute them in a regulated manner, and also to work with greater coherence. This policy is the proof that the European Union is not merely a supermarket; that it will, one day, I hope, be a political power and that it must remain a community that stands together. This is the profession of faith that I wanted to give to you at the beginning of my answer.
Another point of discussion is the choice of eligibility criteria. The Commission chose, and made this choice a long time ago, the criterion of GDP per capita and per region for determining which regions are lagging behind in their development. I think that this is a reliable, straightforward and transparent indicator that all the Member States accept, and it is so that we can maintain an objective approach and a certain impartiality that we are not, at this stage, proposing to add other criteria to the criterion of per capita GDP.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does not mean, however, that the Commission will not listen to appeals by the regions which may be affected, either by enlargement or by the so-called ‘statistical effect’ that several of you have mentioned, by a mathematical decrease in the Community average of per capita GDP or the drop, also mathematical, of the eligibility threshold, which means that some regions that are still having serious problems (not only those in southern Europe, but also in East Germany, in England and elsewhere) are mechanically and artificially situated below this threshold, although they are still experiencing real difficulties.
I will say once again that I am committed to proposing, at the appropriate time, a fair, Community-wide solution so that we can continue to assist the regions which are situated just below the new eligibility threshold.
Furthermore, if we maintain a genuine cohesion policy, which does not only cover regions that are lagging behind in their development, we should be able to take into account other criteria and move, as some of you have pointed out, towards making greater qualitative investment in people, in training men and women and in the information society. I also note that, in the current programmes, – those that I approved and which have got off the ground – there are more programmes based directly on quality, rather than quantity, than in the previous period.
Lastly, I am not forgetting and will not forget the particular attention that must be given (not only in accordance with Article 299 of the Treaty, but also because the real problems they face, and their unbearable levels of unemployment) to the seven outermost regions of the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that these brief clarifications may help to increase even further the degree of consensus between Parliament and the Commission, so that together we can preserve and promote the model of European society, the core of which is cohesion.
One MEP touched upon the subject – and this will be my final point – of the appropriations that you were proposing to grant to the countries which will join the Union, most likely in 2004. I do not share the very harsh judgment that Mrs Schroeder expressed earlier and I do not think that it is fair. We proposed a phasing-in process. These countries already benefit from the Cohesion Fund, and they are experiencing (I regret that Mrs Schroeder is no longer in the Chamber to hear my response) great difficulty in using up the appropriations. And this is why I suggested, along with my colleagues, for this genuine reason, that we adopt a progressive approach to the cohesion policy.
I am not trying to trick anyone or create an effect. I do not want to see money that has been earmarked by Europe for the candidate countries, which will join the EU in 2004, to stay in Brussels or be returned to Brussels. That is why we are being quite ambitious and going further than the proposals set out in the Berlin Agenda for the first year of membership and why we are proposing more money. But we want to avoid a situation where this money cannot be used by the countries that do not yet have the necessary administrative structures in place to manage these appropriations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall end here. Lastly, I confirm that the Commission is due to adopt the third cohesion report in December 2003 and that the report should set out the Commission guidelines for the next agenda. This should, therefore, be done earlier than usual, so that we can, as I said before, begin to turn the new programming period into a reality on the ground, as soon as the new Agenda begins in 2007, rather than two years after that.
We still have a few months to stimulate and make a success of the political debate on cohesion policy. If we succeed in stimulating this debate (and I need you to help me to do this), a decision will be taken, at the appropriate time, by the Heads of State and Government, which will not only maintain cohesion as the heart of a specific model of European society, but will enable the Heads of State to commit, on a budgetary and financial level, to fulfilling the political and strategic choice that they made when they decided to undertake reunification of the European continent, through extensive enlargement that will take place very soon.
In this spirit, I feel that Mr Musotto’s report is an extremely worthwhile and useful contribution, as you have all said, to the debate on the future of the cohesion policy that I unveiled to you in January 2001. And since I am speaking about a concept of Europe, I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the debate on cohesion, which I launched a year ago and which I will be seeing through to completion, in a genuine and decentralised manner, with the Member States – you can count on me to do this – the debate will be part of the other wide-ranging debate on the future of Europe. Depending on how the Heads of State and Government respond to the question of cohesion, depending on whether we maintain, or even extend, the cohesion policy, whether we scale it down or take it apart, we will somehow answer this broad question – one of the subjects to be tackled by the Convention, which we will also be attending – on the future of Europe. What do we want to do together? I think that this contribution, Mr Musotto, is also important because it brings together the points of view of five parliamentary committees after an in-depth discussion has been held. And then, finally, you will adopt this report in a few days and only after the Commission has published the first interim report on cohesion, which I released last week. I will also be coming to present this interim report to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on 20 February, as I pledged to do.
We shall support the new Member States and I hope, personally speaking, that the Agenda, in 2007, will enable them to benefit, like all the other Member States, from every aspect of the cohesion policy.
For all these reasons, I am pleased – in spite of the criticisms or questions, which I feel are constructive – to note in your report, Mr Musotto, a genuine convergence between Parliament and the Commission, on four essential points at least.
First of all, in the future, the main priority of the cohesion policy must be aid to regions that are lagging behind in their development, in other words, the poorest regions. On this point, there is agreement, including amongst the Ministers that I met in Namur during the Belgian Presidency, and you confirm this agreement, that the poor regions, which are lagging behind in their development, are located in the future Member States (and they make up almost all of the regions of the future Member States) or in the Member States of today’s Union. Therefore, our priority and focus is on the regions that are genuinely lagging behind in their development.
The second point of convergence is that cohesion, as many of you pointed out, is not an aspect of one single policy, but of all Community policies, which must, as stipulated in the Treaty, contribute to the cohesion between European countries and regions. This applies to the CAP, which has not been effective, to transport – Mrs de Palacio is here and she could explain this better than myself – to energy, competition, research, employment and many other policies. Each of these policies, even more than before, must contribute to increasing economic and social cohesion, if only because of the question marks that enlargement will raise, which, as we note in our second interim report, will increase gaps and inequality.
The third point is that we must strive to have more than a minimalist cohesion policy and reinvent a policy which applies to all the territories of the Union that are experiencing difficulties. In other words, I note our consensus on the idea that the future regional policy will, after 2006, take into account all European regions, to varying degrees, of course, depending on whether the region is lagging behind in its development or is in a more prosperous region. This policy should contribute to the integration of all regions in the Community and promote territorial cohesion. To do this, it must be more simple, more decentralised and, at the same time, more specific (this is one of the questions that I raised in the cohesion report), specific, for example, on the urban question – half of European citizens will live, already live, in towns; specific on the regions that are undergoing industrial restructuring that you mentioned; specific on the regions that have lasting or definitive natural handicaps, mountainous regions or islands; or even specific on thematic objectives, such as the information society. On this issue too, I await your ideas, but I have explained my outlook.
The fourth point of convergence is that we need resources in order to meet all these challenges and, for the next cohesion policy, resources which meet the needs of a larger Europe. The current threshold of 0.45% of GDP, which I myself quoted last year in reference, is the absolute credible minimum below which, I feel, it is impossible to go without jeopardising the very essence of the cohesion policy.
In my view, the fact that Parliament and the Commission are tonight giving a joint response to these four points is an important and worthwhile political element in the debate on the future of the cohesion policy. Not everyone, as yet, shares this ambitious vision. This applies to certain Member States, where some political leaders – whom I respect and to whom I listen – are talking of the deterioration of politics and one is talking of renationalisation. We therefore have to show, time and again – and I am thinking of Mr Izquierdo Collado’s earlier comments – the merits of the cohesion policy, we must aim to convince and to show that this policy has been worthwhile, that it has helped to bring about greater coherence, but that we still need more. I cannot prove this single-handedly. You can count on me to do this at Commission level, with the help of all my colleagues, but I will not be able to do this if the regions, the Member States and Members of Parliament do not contribute to this task.
It is also natural for us, at this stage, not to have total agreement on all the subjects raised in Mr Musotto’s report. There are points that we must debate or discuss, such as the instruments of the future cohesion policy, the place occupied by Community initiatives, that of the Cohesion Fund or a possible single regional development Fund. All this will, of course, depend on the level of our ambition towards this policy."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples