Cohesion policy and the review of the Europe 2020 strategy

The European Parliament adopted by 530 votes to 75 with 54 abstentions, a resolution on cohesion policy and the review of the Europe 2020 strategy.

The Europe 2020 strategy and its interrelationship with cohesion policy: Members recalled that cohesion policy is the EU’s main investment growth and development policy aligned with the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth and aimed at reducing disparities between regions and promoting convergence, with a budget of EUR 351.8 billion until the end of 2020.

Cohesion policy is the EU’s main policy aligned with the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy built around five ambitious objectives: employment, innovation, climate change and energy sustainability, education, and fighting poverty and social exclusion.

Cohesion policy is the main EU instrument, covering all regions, for investment in the real economy. In parallel, it is developing synergies with other EU policies such as the digital single market, the energy union, the single capital market and social policy. Members called on national and regional authorities across Europe to design smart specialisation strategies and exploit synergies between different EU, national and regional instruments, both public and private.

Parliament stresses with concern the delays in implementing cohesion policy during the current programming period. According to the first evaluation released by the Commission, the amounts allocated to research and innovation, support for SMEs, ICT, the low-carbon economy, employment, social inclusion, education and capacity-building have increased substantially as compared with the previous programming periods, while the level of support for transport and environmental infrastructure has decreased.

The resolution drew attention to the fact that, at the time of the mid-term review of the Europe 2020 strategy, data on implementation of the ESI Funds 2014-2020 may still be lacking, and that, as a result, a concrete evaluation of the contribution of these funds to achieving the strategy’s targets may still not be possible at that stage.

Review momentum of Europe 2020 and related challenges: Members recalled that the Commission launched the strategy review process in 2014 but considered it regrettable that insufficient reference was made to cohesion policy. They noted that the publication of the Commission’s proposal on the review of the Europe 2020 strategy is due before the end of 2015 and regretted this delay.

Parliament called for the scope of the mid-term review of the Europe 2020 strategy to be smart and balanced and to be focused on better interlinking the strategy’s five objectives and its flagship initiatives and on identifying methods as to how they could be better carried forward and evaluated without creating additional layers of complexity and excessive administrative burden. It stressed the importance of:

• taking into account: (i) the strengths and weaknesses of the EU economy, the growing inequalities (such as in wealth), high unemployment and high public debts; (ii) increased societal and environmental sustainability; (iii) greater social inclusion; (iv) gender equality; (v) the importance of continued support from the Commission services for Member State authorities in improving administrative capacity;
• enhancing the responsibility of the strategy by involving Local and Regional Authorities (LRAs) and all relevant civil society stakeholders and interested parties from the target-setting and development of objectives to the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the strategy;
• a strengthened governance structure based on multi-level governance. The commitment by LRAs and stakeholders in the Europe 2020 strategy project should be renewed in the form of a pact between those partners, the Member States and the Commission;
• the need for a truly territorial approach to the Europe 2020 strategy with a view to adjusting public interventions and investments to different territorial characteristics and specific needs;
• acknowledging the significant role of cities and urban areas as drivers for growth and jobs;
• taking into consideration the characteristics and constraints of specific territories, such as those of rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition, regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, island, cross-border and mountain regions and the EU’s outermost regions;
• establishing a coherent ongoing evaluation process in order to regularly assess the progress of Europe 2020 strategy targets whilst emphasising Parliament’s role to supervise the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy and cohesion policy in a coordinated manner, not only within Parliament, but also with all relevant institutions.

ESI Funds: Parliament recalled the importance of the new EU investment instrument, the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), which will support the mobilisation of up to EUR 315 billion in investments.

The EFSI should be complementary and additional to the ESI Funds. Whilst regretting that it is not clearly linked to the Europe 2020 strategy, Parliament considered that, through its objectives and the selection of viable, sustainable projects, it should contribute to the implementation of the strategy in specific areas.

Future cohesion policy: Parliament stressed that both future cohesion policy and the future EU long-term strategy should be drafted before the end of the Commission’s current term, bearing in mind that there will be elections to the European Parliament in 2019, and that this imposes significant specific time constraints on the co-legislators as regards the negotiation calendar, and on the new Commission and the Member States as regards the preparation and adoption of the new partnership agreements and operational programmes before the start of the next MFF.

The Commission is therefore called upon to take into consideration all the specific constraints and to develop a coherent approach as regards the EU’s future long-term sustainable growth and jobs strategy, the EU budget, cohesion policy in particular, and other instruments under the MFF.