CPMR at Cohesion Forum: 'Centre of Europe is more resilient than regions at periphery'

The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe (CPMR) was widely represented at the Cohesion Forum, which took place on 8-9 September 2014 in Brussels, firstly by its President Annika Annerby Jannson, president of the Regional Council of Skåne (SE) taking part in the panel 'Delivering quality: how to achieve better performance?'. Enrico Rossi, President of Tuscany (IT) and member of the CPMR Political Bureau spoke alongside her.

Furthermore, Welsh Finance Minister (UK) Jane Hutt presented her views during the session on 'Improving Governance', while Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, president of Galicia (ES), gave his contribution on the discussion on the 'Future of Cohesion policy', particularly in the post 2020 period. Erik Bergkvist, president for the Regional Executive Committee of Västerbotten and Drew Hendry, leader of the Highland Council, were also active contributors to the panel debates.The main messages that the CPMR flagged up revolved around the idea that the crisis has exacerbated the difference in development between the centre and periphery.

“The centre of Europe is more resilient than the countries and regions at the periphery of Europe, while the central parts of European countries are more resilient than their outlying regions. These new trends require a change in EU Cohesion policies in the long term, most notably Cohesion and Transport policy,” Annerby Jannson said. During her speech, the CPMR president also suggested that the "partnership principle should become part of the ex-ante conditionality” and supported the idea of results orientation “but bearing in mind the additional bureaucratic burden which may require a rethink in terms of lightening auditing and reporting requirements for regions that are spending the funds well”.

President Enrico Rossi explained how the economic downturn had affected public investments in Tuscany (IT) and proposed to exclude ESI Funds co-financing from the Stability and Growth Pact limitations, in order to ensure a consistent level of public investment, thereby relaunching growth in the European regions. “Structural funds should not be subject to the Stability and Growth Pact: for instance, in Tuscany they amount to almost 1 billion euro worth of investment,” he said.

Jane Hutt underlined that “Wales had been a major beneficiary of Structural Funds since 2000: in the 2007-13 period alone, they helped us create over 9,000 enterprises and 28,000 jobs, and helped nearly 61,000 people into work and over 180,000 more to gain qualifications. On the next programming period, Jane Hutt believes that “structural Funds should continue to be made available to the poorest regions in the EU, irrespective of the GDP per capita of the member states in which they are located”. 

In line with the other CPMR representatives, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, President of Galicia, emphasized that “cohesion is a success story for the EU, without it Europe would be weaker. For the future, he insisted “on focusing more on communication infrastructure, such as high speed broadband”. After the Cohesion Forum, the CPMR published its analysis on the 6th Cohesion report, which will be presented officially at its General Assembly taking place on 25-26 September 2014 in Umeå, Sweden.

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