Annex 2: Results of the Cohesion Forum

On 28, 29 and 30 April this year, the Commission organised a forum in Brussels attended by more than 1200 people with responsibilities in the field of economic and social cohesion policy across the Union. Here is a summary of some of the main conclusions drawn by Monica Wulf-Matthies, The Commissioner for cohesion policy.

Mrs Wulf-Matthies reminded her audience that mutual solidarity is the cornerstone of the Community's cohesion policy and that the poorest regions of the Union should remain the main recipients of the Community structural assistance.

The accelerating pace of structural change, affecting not only industrial regions but rural and urban areas as well, means that the Community needs to step up its efforts, the Commissioner said. The regions have to be helped to diversify the fabric of their local economies and increase their capacity to innovate, in particular by developing information technology and encouraging R&D activities.

People are the Union's principal resource. It is essential, She said, that the Structural Funds provide more support for the acquisition of skills and life-long training, as well as stimulating the jobs market and fleshing out Community employment policy. Regarding the operation of the Structural Funds, some of the participants at the forum proposed reducing the number of objectives under the Funds to two. Mrs. Wulf-Matthies tended to favour three Objectives for the period after 1999, namely:

1. one Objective centred on reducing development disparities and confined to the least prosperous regions of the Union, defined according to the strict application of current statistical criteria (i.e. where GDP per capita is less than 75% of the EU average)
2. one Objective concerning the necessary flanking measures for structural change in urban and rural areas
3. one Objective focusing on human resources (training and employment policy).

Similarly, in terms of simplifying procedures and concentrating assistance, the participants in the forum called for a reduction in the number of programmes, in particular by cutting back the variety of Community initiatives.

The debate also confirmed the necessity of assessing the results of Community assistance. Simply checking that money had been disbursed is not enough. Objective criteria need to be set for measuring the efficiency of expenditure. The assistance provided by the Structural Funds should be regarded less as an entitlement and more as an incentive to running efficient and effective development programmes. With budgets tight everywhere, more diverse ways of providing assistance have to be considered, such as: combinations of subsidies and loans, interest-rate subsidies, loan guarantees, etc.

The likely milestones for the review of the Structural Funds after period 1999, are as follows: during the summer of 1997, the Commission will present its overall financial perspective for 2000-06 ('Santer package'); the European Council to be held in Luxembourg should adopt this in December 1997; in the spring 1998, the Commission will submit its proposals for new Structural Fund regulations and these should be adopted in the course of 1998 ¹⁰.

10. At the time of final writing of this report, this is now considered to be March 1999.