Commissioner Creţu reassures Committee of the Regions: Juncker's investment plan will complement cohesion funds
The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has warmly welcomed the confirmation by the Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Creţu i, that the new European Fund for Strategic Investments will complement cohesion funding.
Speaking during her intervention at today's CoR plenary session Commissioner Creţu said, "We have the ambition to stimulate additional investment in the European economy as a way to promote growth and create jobs. It's of utmost importance that we complement our efforts in order to maximise the impact of the European Structural and Investment Funds." She also proposed deepening cooperation between the European Commission and the CoR to assess the impact of structural funds, promoting the better use of financial instruments and boosting simplification. Furthermore, she insisted on the need for high quality projects in the context of the current registration of the operational programmes.
During the debate with the Commissioner the CoRs' President, Michel Lebrun, insisted on the timely implementation of the 2014-2020 cohesion policy. He emphasised the need to undertake all possible actions to boost the delivery of planned projects and to preserve the actual availability of regional policy resources. "Europe is lagging behind in terms of growth and employment, while regional disparities have widened since the start of the crisis. The annual growth survey for 2015 therefore stresses the role of investment and structural reforms", he said. He also reiterated his call to exclude national and regional investment matching EU regional policy from the deficit calculations under the Stability and Growth Pact, as a way to eliminate obstacles to investments in regions and local entities.
In this context, the CoR adopted three key documents during its plenary session:
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-Opinion on Promoting quality of public spending in matters subject to EU action by CoR First Vice-President Catiuscia Marini (IT/PES), President of the Umbria Region
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-Opinion on the Sixth report on economic, social and territorial cohesion by the President of the Lazio Region Nicola Zingaretti (IT/PES)
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