President Lebrun welcomes efforts to speed-up structural funds but is deeply concerned by possible cuts to or reprogramming of cohesion policy resources

Following the outcome of the General Affairs Council (GAC) the Committee of the Regions (CoR) President Michel Lebrun (pictured) has welcomed the efforts made by the EU Council and the European Commission to speed up the adoption and implementation of cohesion policy partnership agreements and operational programmes. However, President Lebrun raised concerns about the possible changes to the 2014-2020 EU budget allocations for cohesion policy which could be connected to the funding of the future €300 billion European Commission's investment package.

"We wholeheartedly support the GAC calls on the Commission and member states to accelerate the adoption of Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes as it is our shared duty to turn those plans into concrete growth opportunities for our communities," said President Lebrun. He also stressed that the current delays are challenging regional and local authorities' capacity to plan and implement the 2014-2020 European Structural Investment Funds. "This situation requires full stable cooperation between the European Commission, national governments, regions and cities, otherwise our investment could hit the ground too late."

Referring to financial allocations, President Lebrun said: "There is a growing lack of clarity on the key issue of resources. It is worrying that the GAC feels the need to 'explore all the possibilities to preserve the availability of financial resources within the EU budget'. This could mean that such availability is no longer ensured, despite the fact that the European Union committed to investing €350bn on sustainable and inclusive growth through its regional policy. Furthermore, it has been suggested that cohesion policy will contribute to the €300bn investment package to be launched in December. These two open issues offer serious uncertainty at the very moment when regions and cities are mobilizing all their energies to plan and deliver operational programmes for 2014-2020."

Finally, President Lebrun reiterated the CoRs' call to exclude national and regional co-financing of cohesion policy projects from the Stability and Growth Pact: "The GAC focused on making the best use of the flexibility allowed under the Pact rules. We have heard this again and again over the past two years yet there is no clear understanding of what can be done under such flexibility . Regions and cities still face serious problems in ensuring the timely implementation of structural funds because of undifferentiated expenditure ceilings". In this respect, he underlined how "a close link between financial and fiscal objectives and cohesion policy could weaken the implementation of territorial cohesion measures".

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