Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2017-04-26-Speech-1-193-000"
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"en.20170426.17.1-193-000"2
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"Mr President, the more perceptive amongst us will realise that I am not Constanze Krehl. Unfortunately Ms Krehl cannot be here tonight – she sends her apologies and has asked me to speak on her behalf. I am sure that, if Ms Krehl was here, she would want to thank the co—rapporteur, Mr Van Nistelrooij, and all the shadows for their usual cooperation in this important report.
I want to start my contribution by making a general point about structural reforms. I think that too often structural reforms are seen as being only about privatisation, cuts and austerity, but they should not be. Structural reforms should be about positive things and about changing an economy in a positive way. It should be about changing an economy to promote jobs and growth, to promote research and development, and to promote education and training. All these things are important. Those are the type of structural reforms that I think we should be supporting.
That is why structural funds are so important when we talk about structural reforms: structural funds are an investment in all the things I have just mentioned. That is why, in the current programme of structural funds, we have ex-ante conditionalities: to make sure that structural funds are producing results and are achieving jobs and growth. We put in place conditionalities to make sure we promote policies on growth, the environment, gender equality and many other things. These are the type of things we can use structural funds for in order to improve growth across the European Union.
Today, we are talking about using technical assistance to support structural reforms in Member States. This will be on a voluntary basis. Member States can, if they wish, take advantage of this new policy and can, of course, add their own funds to it as well. We should not forget that some of the technical assistance will go towards important areas and important policies, such as education and training. However, we also should not forget that the Commission is proposing EUR 143 million to be redirected, mainly from structural funds, towards technical assistance. Therefore, my group believes it is important that the new reform programmes align with cohesion policy aims, because we are using cohesion policy funds. We also believe it is important that local and regional governments are involved in the reform process so that their needs are met – Mr van Nistelrooij mentioned this in his contribution as well. We also think it is important that Parliament receive the support plans and monitoring reports so that we, as a democratic body, can look at the progress which is being made.
We also believe that it is important, from a budget point of view, that this programme, which redirects structural funds, does not set a precedent for the future. Certainly, we in the S&D Group could not accept the slicing of structural funds to be used for future new programmes and initiatives. If we want new programmes and new initiatives, then we have to find other ways of funding them. We have already seen a cut in the current structural funds programme, and if Brexit happens, the EU budget will be cut in the future as well. There will be less money for all programmes, including structural funds. So those of us who want to protect structural funds have to make this point now. They have to make the point very, very strongly that this cannot be a precedent for the future. We know that structural funds could also be under attack in the future from those who want to reduce the funding of structural funds or want to scrap structural funds altogether.
So I would say, in conclusion, that the S&D Group supports this report. We have been the co—rapporteur, with Mr Van Nistelrooij, on the report. We support it, and we also support the proposal put forward by the Commission and will be voting for it tomorrow, but we would not want to see this as a precedent. The S&D Group believes that structural funds have always been one of the most important policies of the European Union, and should be in the future. We will be fighting to defend them in the future."@en1
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