Cohesion Forum - New objectives for structural policy
At the European Cohesion Forum, organized by the European Commission in Brussels at the end of April 1997, the focus of discussion was on the future priorities for the European Community's structural policies. Mrs. Monika Wulf-Mathies, Commissioner responsible for regional policy, reminded her audience that mutual solidarity is the cornerstone of the Community's cohesion policy, and that the poorest regions of the EU should remain the main recipients of structural assistance. The accelerating pace of structural change means that the Community needs to increase its efforts in this area. Regions need 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 RTD activities, she continued. The Structural Funds should also provide more support for the acquisition of skills and lifelong learning, as well as stimulating the job market and fleshing out Community employment policy, since people are the EU's principal resource. As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, once the current programme finishes at the end of 1999, Commissioner Wulf-Mathies tends to favour three Objectives: - Reducing development disparities, confined to the least prosperous regions of the EU (per capita GDP less than 75% of the EU average); - Necessary flanking measures for structural change in urban and rural areas; - Human resources (training and employment policy). This reduction from the current seven Objectives will focus and concentrate Structural Fund assistance. In addition, the Commission is also considering reducing the number of Community initiatives. Better evaluation and assessment procedures would also be introduced. The timetable envisaged for the renewal of the Structural Funds would be as follows: The Commission will first publish its financial perspectives for the period 2000-2006 in July 1997, with these expected to be adopted in December 1997 at the Luxembourg European Council. These will set the Community's overall budgetary framework for the period, within which the annual budgets for each programme and initiative will be set. The proposal for the new Structural Funds Regulation will then be published in early 1998, with its adoption expected to be completed by the end of 1998. The new Structural Funds would then come into operation in 2000.