“Cohesion Policy must stay”: Regions and cities are united that it works

The 22nd European Week of Regions and Cities concluded yesterday with a closing session attended by Commissioner Elisa Ferreira and the President of the European Committee of the Regions, Vasco Alves Cordeiro. The event was used as an opportunity for Elisa Ferreira, EU Commissioner of Regional Policy to bid farewell and to take stock of the successes and challenges of past 5 years.

The session participants also tried to trace possible ways for the Cohesion Policy (CP) to stay relevant and efficient into the future and also look ahead on how it can contribute to Europe’s competitiveness.

A sense of anxiety

During the entire four-day event there was a palpable sense of anxiety felt by local and regional leaders due to ongoing rumours that in the next European Commission term, the Cohesion Policy will be severely reformed and centralized.

This foreboding shadow coloured many of the statements expressed by CoR President Vasco Cordeiro:

The major challenge for Cohesion Policy is its existence. CP is at risk at this moment because some tend to think that it’s old and not working anymore, even if the data clearly states the opposite. Others think it serves goals of the past,” he said.

In his view, however, such criticism was misplaced, since the policy has demonstrated its effectiveness over the years. He conceded that CP may not be perfect as it is, but if something needs to be changed are its complex bureaucratic processes. Nevertheless, key features of the CP, such as multi-level governance, place-based approach, long-term investment, shared management, are what makes it unique and makes people feel more connected to its outcomes.

It’s the only policy that makes Europe happen everywhere,” declared President Cordeiro.

Oliver Röpke, President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EECP), concurred, adding that CP was not just the glue, but also the DNA of the European project. It has shown that it can adapt in the short term to new crises and overcome the most immediate consequences of these.

We are opposed to reducing the Cohesion Policy, we reject the idea of converting it to something similar to Recovery and Resilience Facility with little or no shared insight,” said Oliver Röpke.

Mindaugas Liutvinskas, Lithuanian Vice Minister of Finance, who also attended the closing session showcased his own country as an example of how well the CP has worked over the years.

Lithuania can be seen as a success story of the transformative effect of CP. 20 years ago, GDP was 48% of EU, last year we are at 86% and I’m confident we’ll go beyond that. Since joining EU, we’ve invested around 20 billion euros through CP instruments, and more than 75% of Luthuanians say they feel positive effect of EU involvement.”

Commissioner Ferreira agreed that Cohesion Policy should stay and reminded the audience that it was in essence the biggest public investment tool in Europe. She expressed hope that there will be consensus among the high political levels of EU about the usefulness of CP going forward.

How can we make CP more effective going forward?

The participants used the closing session as an opportunity to offer some ideas to the main EU policy makers when they get together to decide the future of the Cohesion Policy.

According to Oliver Ropke, it was misleading to put European competitiveness (on the global stage) and inter-regional cohesion at odds so that one would get attention and funding at the expense of the other. In this geopolitical situation we need to close the gap between different regions in order to make them more stable to threat and propaganda.

The Lithuanian finance minister spoke, in that regard, as a representative of a country that has regions bordering Belarus (a sanctioned country), which have suffered economically due to border closures.

He proposed approaching the issue of regional development creatively and with a patient investment mindset.

Resources are always limited even if we try to increase the funding amount, that’s why we need to apply financial instruments to better efficiency out of limited resources. In Lithuania, we have good experience with that. More than 10% of total funds go to financial instruments, which will leverage to attract public and private investments. Every euro from Cohesion Policy attracts 3 to 5 euros from such investments.”

Mindaugas Liutvinskas volunteered his country to serve as a mentor of good practices in that respect.

The task of developing economically, socially and geographically diverse regions is certainly a daunting one. Certain regions have huge difficulties to get the Green Deal processes going and divorce from coal dependency, while other regions suffer from depopulation, brain drain or having borders with Russia or other external EU borders.

One of the aspects that we have to improve is defining priorities in each region... We have to introduce in the Cohesion Policy the capacity to adapt to any challenges that may occur in the future,” was Commissioner Ferreira’s proposal.

Vasco Alves Cordeiro, who served as the President of the Azores autonomous region (located in the Atlantic Ocean), spoke from personal experience when he reminded the audience that some regions don’t have the ability to appeal to other funds other than the funds provided by the EU because they are too isolated to appeal to private investors. In that sense, a mechanism like Cohesion Policy is a lifesaver.

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