Toespraak van eurocommissaris Hahn (Regionaal Beleid) over cohesiebeleid (en)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for being here with us today. Cohesion policy over the years has been a key instrument to build the European Union as it is today. It has created millions of jobs, produced important new infrastructures and modernised our way of life. But in an increasingly globalised world, we have to ensure that European policy keeps up the pace with economic and political realities in order to tackle hands on the enormous challenges we face. Today, my colleague Laszlo Andor i and I would like to present our views on reforming Cohesion Policy. The Union, especially in these difficult times, needs good and targeted investment in our regions, via Cohesion Policy. It needs a policy that can make the investments that will help the Union and its regions emerge from the crisis and contribute to the ambitious Europe 2020 strategy.

In the report that the Commission has adopted today, you will see how and where Cohesion Policy has already helped to improve economic, social and environmental conditions in our Union. However, the lasting social effects of the crisis, the demand for innovation arising from global challenges, and the constant imperative to get more value out of public expenditure call for an ambitious reform of the policy on several fronts.

While preserving its overall objective we aim to steer the policy more decisively towards results and enact the reforms needed in order to achieve these results, whilst cutting red-tape and simplifying the daily management of the policy.

It is clear that if the EU wants to succeed all need to contribute; being it on European, national, regional or local level. That's why we propose a development and investment partnership contract between Member States, regions and the Commission.

This contract will require firstly that Member States and regions concentrate EU and national resources on a small number of priorities responding to the specific challenges they face. Critics often argue that Cohesion Policy is loosely linked to EU priorities, spreads resources too thinly among policy areas, and that its impact is often difficult to measure. I take these criticisms very seriously. That’s why Member States and regions should select a limited number of priority areas from a menu which reflects the priorities of the Europe 2020 Strategy.

But let me be clear. This is not only a question of coherence of EU action; it is also a question of good economics. A greater concentration of resources will build up a critical mass so that a greater impact can be attained.

Secondly, for each priority selected Member States and regions will have to set themselves - at the beginning of the programming cycle - clear and measurable targets to better evaluate progress.

Thirdly, we want to strengthen the performance of the policy through the introduction of conditions and incentives. The global financial and economic crisis has revealed that sound macroeconomic policies, a favourable microeconomic environment and strong institutional frameworks are preconditions for creating jobs, stimulate growth, reduce poverty and bring about structural changes and are in addition heavily interlinked. The Commission has already put its proposal on economic governance on the table.

We are considering linking the disbursement of EU funding to specific reforms closely related to the areas of intervention of Cohesion Policy. These would be negotiated and fixed in the contract at the beginning of the programming cycle. The main purpose is to help countries and regions to address the problems, which past experience has shown to be particularly relevant for policy implementation. These may concern, for example, the functioning of the public procurement system, the transposition of relevant EU environmental legislation into national law, the existence of comprehensive sectoral strategies (for transport, waste management, or smart specialisation), or the criteria for selecting projects.

In addition, to even further strengthen the effectiveness of cohesion policy we are planning to set aside part of the cohesion budget in a performance reserve at EU-level which would be attributed during a mid-term review to those national or regional programmes that have contributed most to the Europe 2020 targets.

Another important avenue to reform Cohesion Policy concerns its management and delivery system. Cohesion Policy has often been confronted with criticism for its complex delivery system. I think in this regard our efforts for lighter and simpler rules have been bearing fruit, but are far from finished.

However, we need to bear in mind that simpler rules and lighter procedure do not necessarily need a fundamental change of the whole system. This would not only be costly. It might cause more problems than providing solutions. My guiding principle here is "to enjoin the good and forbid the evil". Our objective must be to strengthen accountability and transparency of the shared management system.

I am fully convinced that Member States and regions are best placed to manage the financial resources of Cohesion Policy. This is not only a matter of increasing ownership but also of financial effectiveness and ultimately a matter of subsidiarity.

However, we cannot forget about the accountability towards European tax payers. That’s why Member States will have to submit a declaration that their accounts are in order. After all, shared management must also mean shared accountability and shared responsibility. Yesterday's report of the court of auditors shows us that we are on the right track. The rate of errors in the field of Cohesion Policy has dropped considerably. Of course there is no room for complacency. We remain vigilant and keep working to further reduce the numbers of errors and stamp out fraud. I do want, however, to distinguish between errors due to not correctly following of procedures and rules and fraud which actually concerns a very small part of the Cohesion Policy budget.

I'm sorry if I will disappoint some of you, but I will not be able to say how much money will be available for Cohesion Policy as of 2014. This will be the outcome of the budget debates to come. I therefore will not be in the position either to say how much money will be available for certain regions. But it is clear that Cohesion Policy needs to be endowed with sufficient resources to create critical mass and ensure impact.

However what I can say is that Cohesion Policy will cover all regions of the EU, from the northernmost regions of Finland and Sweden to the Greek islands, from the eastern regions of Poland to the regions in the UK and France and of course the Outermost Regions.

As today, resources will be concentrated on the less developed regions and Member States, according to a system based on the level of economic development as measured by GDP per capita. This would also include a fair and transparent transition system as foreseen in the budget review paper. This will pay particular attention to those regions which have not yet completed their process of catching up.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Of course these proposals are not cast in iron. They aim to open a broader consultation process on how to prepare all the European regions for life in a continuously and increasingly changing economic landscape. We will now enter in in-depth discussion with the European Institutions, Member States and regions, and other stakeholders to collect their views on our proposals which will culminate in the Cohesion Forum in February.

In all this we should not forget that we can only succeed if we act as a Union and cooperate at all levels. In this sense Cohesion Policy makes visible more than any other policy what we are doing for citizens in their regions, tailor-made to their specific needs in order to compete in a globalised economy.

In this economy we need to pay particular attention to our cities. They are challenges and key to solutions at the same time. Challenges, because they waste a lot of energy and resources and generate up to 70% of all CO2 emissions and are often places where problems of social exclusion and poverty accumulate. Solutions, because they offer vast possibilities for innovation and integration, and their compact structure gives a huge potential to save energy.

With over 70% of Europeans living in cities we need to focus on a smart and sustainable urban policy.

We must keep striving in our cities as well as in all other regions to deliver the European project via concrete results on the ground. As after all we should be a Union of projects and not a Union of procedures.

I think these proposals are a good basis to give credible responses to all demands for an effective, accountable and transparent system and I want to thank Laszlo especially for his valuable and constructive collaboration in this endeavour.