EU's cohesion policy gets Lisbon agenda makeover 

The Third Report on Economic and Social Cohesion paints a positive picture of the impact of the EU's regional policy and proposes maintaining the current system. However, the Commission also underlines the need to bring cohesion policy more in line with the agendas set in Lisbon (competitiveness and economic growth) and Gothenburg (sustainable development). Therefore it defines a new architecture with three new priorities for the next generation of cohesion programmes: 

• convergence (objective 1): support for growth and job creation in the least developed Member States and regions. Regions whose per capita GDP is less than 75 per cent of the EU average will be eligible (mostly regions from new Member States), but temporary support (until 2013) will be given to regions where per capita GDP was below 75 per cent for EU-15 (the so-called 'statistical effect');
• Regional competitiveness and employment (objective 2): for cohesion support outside the least favoured Member States to help them deal with rapid economic and social change, globalisation and the transition to the knowledge society. The Commission proposes a two-fold approach: regional programmes and national programmes;
• territorial co-operation: to stimulate cross-border co-operation in order to find joint solutions to problems such as urban, rural and coastal development, the development of economic relations and the networking of SMEs. For this a new instrument will be created: the "Cross-border regional authority".

The recommendations for a new cohesion policy architecture follow the presentation on 10 February of the Commission's proposals for the new 'financial perspective' (see

EurActiv 10 Febr. 2004). In terms of financial resources, the Commission has allocated 336.3 billion euro or 0.41 per cent of the Union's Gross National Income (GNI) in support of cohesion. Around 78 per cent of this amount will be for the "convergence" priority, some 18 per cent for "regional competitiveness and employment" and around 4 per cent for "European territorial cohesion".