Tag: Regional Policy

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a film star who is also an environmentalist, stole the show at a gathering of mayors committed to climate and energy objectives held in the European Parliament yesterday (24 June).

Paris eyes an extension of €1 billion for 10 French regions that it says are collateral victims of cuts to the EU budget for 2014-2020. EurActiv France reports.

Cohesion Policy will be the main public investment instrument for Greece in the foreseeable future, EU Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn told Greek regional governors in Athens. EurActiv Greece contributed reporting for this article.

While EU officials in Brussels boast about the proposed simplification of the bloc's cohesion policy, regional representatives contend that managing EU funds is still very complicated in practice.

German MEP Constanze Krehl was working to win a mandate on EU funds for the 2014-2020 multi-annual financial framework. She says EU funds will be completely revamped to support projects that fall in line with the EU's 2020 goals, but throws her support behind coal plants.

MEPs are rushing to get an agreement on how EU funds will be spent on regions in the next budgetary period (2014-2020), but it remains to be seen how 'green' the proposal will be with some lawmakers saying it retains subsidies for non-climate-friendly gas and oil projects.

Twelve member states asked yesterday (24 April) for a halt to “unfair” cuts in cohesion funding, as EU foreign ministers on the same day launched negotiations over the EU's next multi-annual budget for 2014-2020.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has called for an end to “artificial” growth, fuelled by “irresponsible financial behaviour”, and asked for Europe's cities to follow the example of green capitals such as Copenhagen.

Negotiations on the role regional funds will play in the EU’s next multi-annual budget are stagnating because talks are taking place in the context of the pre-crisis period, Fabian Zuleeg of the European Policy Centre told EurActiv in an interview.

The EU’s next budget is likely to include the first-ever binding document setting “stronger” and “clearer” objectives for regional funds to support sustainable development.

The European Commission's proposals that urge member states to invest part of their regional development fund on low-carbon and energy-efficiency measures sounds very encouraging, argues Markus Trilling of the CEE Bankwatch Network. The question that remains though is whether these proposals will be sufficient enough to secure the conditions for a sustainable regional development.

The European Union's neighbourhood policy lacks strategic vision, leading to the ad hoc management of crises and muted influence in the world, argues Richard Youngs.

Policymakers in the EU institutions, national governments and regional authorities are fighting for control over Europe's future regional policy spending after the European Commission last week tabled budget plans for the post-2013 seven-year period. 

Paving the way for an "ambitious" agreement on the 2014-2020 budget, energy security and the European Union's Eastern neighbourhood are all key priorities of the Polish EU Presidency during the second half of 2011. The Poles, for their part, have pulled all the stops to ensure that the Union remains committed to redistributive policies at a time of economic austerity.

French regional leaders have urged EU policymakers to maintain cohesion funding at current levels or risk throwing Europe back into recession. 

The European Union's budget chief defended plans yesterday (20 April) to increase the bloc's spending by 4.9% next year, saying the proposal struck a balance between austerity and the need to boost growth.

Meeting in Brussels today (1 April), regional leaders are expected to adopt a report that directly contradicts many of the European Commission's ideas for reforming the EU structural funds in the coming years. Mayor of Dunkirk Michel Delebarre spoke to EurActiv about why the Committee of the Regions cannot support some of the Commission's plans.

The European Commission wants to subsidise regions like eastern Germany, which are less prosperous than average, through a new category of funding. German MEP Markus Pieper (European People's Party), MEP and vice-chair of the European Parliament's regional policy committee, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview why he is not convinced by the idea.

Meeting in Brussels yesterday (21 February), EU ministers expressed strong support for maintaining the bloc's cohesion policy, but failed to find agreement on some of the controversial aspects of the European Commission's review proposal, including attaching conditions to the  payment of EU funds.

The European Commission faces an uphill struggle to convince member states that extra funding should be made available to regions that are neither poor nor prosperous - but somewhere in between.

The cohesion policy (or regional policy) of the European Union provides a framework for financing a wide range of projects and investments with the aim of encouraging economic growth in EU member states and their regions. The policy is reviewed by the EU institutions once every seven years. The next round of programmes is to be launched in 2014.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron used a two-day EU summit which concluded today (17 December) to build an alliance in favour of capping the European Union's multi-annual budget for the post-2014 period. EurActiv's network reports.

The prime ministers of Poland and the Czech Republic have declared that they will not accept any cuts in the amount of financial support that is provided to Central and Eastern European countries in the framework of the European Union's regional policy.

As the European Commission prepares to publish its ideas for the future of EU regional policy after 2013, the political debate on how much money will be available for the bloc's regional funds is already underway. EurActiv France reports.