Wolfgang PetzoldCommittee of the Regions, Brussels

Challenges for the new Cohesion Policy 2014-2020.

An academic and policy debate2nd joint EU Cohesion Policy conference

Riga, 04-06 February 2015

What if regions and cities governed EU regional and

urban policy?

Design:agenda setting and lobby formation

Commission +++Council +, EP+, regions, NGO

Legislation/MFF: negotiations, package deals, fine tuning of rules

Council +++, EP +++Commission ++regions, NGO

Implementation:project selection, control,

evaluationMember states, regions +++

Commission +, NGO +

Programme negotiations:member states +++, regions +++ Commission +++

NGO +

Who governs EU Cohesion Policy and the ESI Funds?

Context: crisis and critical debate (non-paper of DG BUDG);

Result: success because Commission provided adequate arenas for discussion, new policy narratives and rationales (economic governance link); however: path-dependence and juste retour logic of EU budget negotiations dominate;

Cost: increased administrative burden and reduced flexibility for national and regional players;

Risk: policy switch-off in a number of member states.

The embedded 2013 reform

ESI Funds 2014-2020: funds and programmes managed at national/regional level

Budget:63% national37% regional

116

1 9

345

1263

857

1261

713

3 2

3 4

816

511

5 8

9 0

4 0

4 0

10 0

4 0

4 0

3 0

3 2

9 0

3 0

3 0

3 0

5 0

8 0

9 0

3 0

nat.reg.

No. of OPs:30% national70% regional

bn. EUR

Results of a survey among managing authorities of ESI Funds

by country

Greece (7)

Italy (9)Germany (32)

UK (5)

Netherlands (6)

Belgium (6)Austria (5)

regional (54)

local (10)

other (6)

by fund

ERDF (64)

ESF (20)

CohesionFund (5)

EAFRD (5)

EMFF (13)

by level ofgovernment

national (37)

Profile of respondents

2014 reform and impact of EU Cohesion Policy/ESIF

Macro-economic conditionality

Evaluation

Ex-ante conditionality

Results orientation

Thematic concentration

0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50

other

Communication/transparency

Ex-ante coditionality/compliance

Monitoring/evaluation

Financial management/control

Programming

Partnership principle

Policy integration/coordination

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

New provisions of recent reform: which are the most significant?

EU Cohesion Policy/ESIF: added value on what?

positive (28)

positive and negative (35)

negative (1)

no impact (4)

impact on national/regional policies?

EU Cohesion Policy/ESIF reform post-2020

take regions more into account? yes (41)no (12)

no answer (13)

how? national debate (47)

EU level debate (34)

personal involve-ment(18)

Ideas? (5)

Conditionality

Monitoring/evaluation

Communication/transparency

Partnership principle

Financial management/control

Programming

Thematic concentration

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Next reform: regions‘ different views on what?

Involve regional and urban policy makers in the design phase of EU Cohesion Policy, particularly on provisions concerned with its administration (regional and urban practitioners forum). Reflect more thoroughly on the interaction between EU-level and local-level development goals and their implementation. Coordinate policy learning better among the different players throughout the policy cycle including across ESI Funds authorities. Link such processes systematically to efforts made in the field of capacity building through transnational projects.

Recommendations

the development of institutional capacity and policy design at regional/local level;

the impact of common provisions on the ESI Funds and of multi-fund programmes on the policy’s administration;

the study of good practices and failures in governance of integrated territorial development approaches at local and regional level, in functional areas and as part of cross-border, transnational and macro-regional programmes and strategies;

the study of potential relations between existing fiscal equalisation systems and regional development policies;

options for future policy design with a view to new narratives.

Further research on …

What if regions and cities governed EU regional and urban policy?