Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-05-Speech-2-221"
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"en.20050705.26.2-221"2
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"Mr President, it is through our support for Europe’s most disadvantaged regions, particularly those in Eastern Europe, that our solidarity is given expression. I would like to emphasise something about which previous speakers have not pin-pointed, namely that European structural policy also kick-starts innovation in those regions that are not typical candidates for support.
What I would like to stress is the importance of Objective II, employment and competitiveness, whereby Europe helps to give infrastructures and innovation and international dimension. Both in Europe’s traditional centres of economic activity and elsewhere, the result of such impetus will be growth, from which, at the end of the day, we will all benefit.
Structural grants do not just support growth and European pilot projects; I would emphasise that promoting the competitiveness of regions helps to get the European ideal accepted in Western Europe. While this is particularly true of grants from the Social Fund, it also applies in the case of Objective II, territorial cooperation. Whether as a consequence of cross-border social institutions, enterprise zones or chambers of commerce, cross-border association is the way by which the European ideal is lived. It is because it is important that this form of European support be maintained that we endorse the principles underlying the Commission proposal.
We have to give very serious thought to how, even with less money at our disposal, we can retain the structural policy’s political substance. We will have to rearrange the way in which structural and agricultural policies are funded, and what that means is that agricultural cofinancing must be required at national level, along with rules that make public-private partnerships simpler. We will, in future, also have to think about funding structural programmes by taking out loans. If there have to be cuts, they will have to be made across the board, in all fields of action, and not to the detriment of individual regions or programmes.
The bottom line is that European structural support works. We should fight for its political substance. We appeal to the Heads of State or Government to do their part for the benefit of Europe’s regions."@en1
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