13.9.2012   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 277/96

—

welcomes a dedicated Regulation to ETC, as it provides an important contribution to the territorial cohesion objective, as well as its increased budget allocation; furthermore, the CoR urges that EU funds be allocated by cooperation programmes and not by Member States;

—

notes that, due to its multilateral nature, ETC cannot be managed using partnership agreements. It should therefore be explicitly excluded from the scope of that instrument;

—

regrets that the new Regulation is not adapted to small projects, and asks the European Commission to grant exemptions to small cross-border programmes and operations, in particular for those under EUR 35 000;

—

thinks that thematic concentration should not be applied automatically to ETC, as it fears that if ETC were to be narrowly focused solely on the core EU 2020 priorities, it would be incapable of fulfilling its distinct and unique role; therefore, recommends that the number of thematic objectives be increased from 4 to 5, and that the list of investment priorities be extended; therefore, calls for the thematic objectives to be extended to other topics, such as tourism, climate-friendly maritime transport, culture or the impact of demographic change;

—

feels that the CoR should play an active role in promoting ETC and in identifying and overcoming obstacles to its implementation;

—

calls for the cofinancing level to be set at 85 % for less developed regions as it stands in the current General Regulation No 1083/2006;

—

agrees with the exemption granted to outermost regions in terms of cofinancing rates and funding, and calls for special conditions for areas which were external borders of the Community on 30 April 2004 and on 31 December 2006;

—

calls for strengthening the coordination mechanisms between all the Funds and territorial cooperation programmes; emphasises also the need to better coordinate ETC with external financial programmes of the EU and clarify the rules concerning the participation of third countries in ETC programmes;

—

emphasises the crucial role of EGTCs to strengthen territorial cooperation, and urges Member States to remove barriers that are discouraging the setting up or the functioning of EGTCs.

Rapporteur

Mr Petr OSVALD (CZ/PES), Member of Plzeň City Council

Reference document

Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on specific provisions for the support from the European Regional Development Fund to the European territorial cooperation goal

COM(2011) 611 final – 2011/0273 (COD)

1.

welcomes a dedicated European Territorial Cooperation (ETC) regulation, which will take account of the specific aim, aspects and status of territorial cooperation as the second objective of cohesion policy; this separate regulation highlights ETC's contribution to furthering the new Treaty objective of territorial cohesion and to achieving the objectives of cohesion policy in general; it also boosts the importance of ETC in terms of its focus on cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation;

2.

agrees that the role of European Territorial Cooperation is all the more important since the challenges faced by Member States and regions increasingly cut across national/regional boundaries and require joint, cooperative action at the appropriate territorial level. It can thus also provide an important contribution to fostering the new Treaty objective of territorial cohesion;

3.

supports, in principle, the Commission's proposals to align territorial cooperation with the Europe 2020 strategy, while noting that there must be sufficient flexibility to respond appropriately to local needs; therefore welcomes the fact that ETC's three elements (cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation) have been retained in all regions of Europe. Cooperation in projects and structures across borders is already making a real contribution to European integration. The CoR also welcomes the increased involvement of third countries;

4.

takes the view that cross-border cooperation should continue to play a key role within European Territorial Cooperation and therefore endorses in principle the proposal for the distribution of allocations between the different types of ETC;

5.

points out that the regulation is too demanding, complicated and detailed, especially for small cross-border cooperation programmes, and this may prevent the implementation of small but often very effective operations. The Committee asks the European Commission, therefore, to consider whether these programmes must necessarily be subject to all the provisions of the regulation. If maximum effectiveness is to be achieved, the same demands cannot be made on both small and large programmes and operations;

6.

endorses the current method of defining regions for cross-border cooperation, and calls for the area of eligibility for cross-border cooperation (strand A) to be extended to allow functional cross-border relations to be taken into account for inclusion in the scope of the programme. In this connection, decisions on linking functionally complementary regions that are particularly important in achieving the objectives should not have to wait until the programme approval procedure; also endorses the greater opportunities provided for carrying out multilateral projects in areas in which multilateral cooperation programmes will not be implemented;

7.

stresses the key role of ETC in developing transnational cooperation, especially for promoting the integrated territorial development of coherent areas, and in supporting macroregional strategy development projects; welcomes the fact that the established transnational cooperation areas (strand B) will in principle be maintained and that the EU's macro-regional strategies will not lead to new cooperation areas being created or to areas being excluded from transnational cooperation. The Committee also in principle welcomes the support for the development and implementation of macro-regional strategies in the context of transnational cooperation;

8.

highlights the potential of interregional cooperation, especially through its leverage effect in the use of Structural Funds; views support for interregional cooperation (strand C) as an excellent tool for encouraging exchanges of experience and cooperation between local and regional authorities regarding cohesion policy, and urges that the results of these exchanges be drawn on more effectively for local and regional development strategies (capitalisation);

9.

notes, however, that the main aims of European Territorial Cooperation should be to:

as set out in the explanatory memorandum of the proposal for a regulation;

10.

thinks, therefore, that European Territorial Cooperation should help to create a sense of belonging to Europe and being connected, to remove prejudices and to develop the regions concerned. Accordingly, the Committee thinks that thematic concentration must not be applied automatically to ETC and that the level and potential of individual regions must be taken into account: there should be no attempt to apply the one-size-fits-all principle (i.e. the same priorities for all). On the contrary, a place-based approach should be taken. The Committee of the Regions fears that if ETC and, especially, cross-border cooperation were to be narrowly focused solely on the core EU 2020 priorities and thematic objectives, it would be incapable of fulfilling its distinct and unique role and would simply become a variation of core cohesion policy, but with a different form of distribution;

11.

urges that demographic change and its impact on services of general interest and sustainable regional development be included as separate themes for ETC. Priority should be given to new forms of urban-rural partnership as a basis for territorial cohesion at regional level (in line with the Territorial Agenda 2020). Important themes such as tourism, climate-friendly maritime transport and culture are also missing;

12.

believes that, when it comes to cross-border cooperation, it is vital to define the developmental potential of each cross-border area in terms of the present level of the regions in question. European Territorial Cooperation – and especially cross-border cooperation – should not be geared primarily to achieving the EU 2020 strategy, but above all to creating the conditions for its broadest possible – i.e. pan-European – implementation. It should therefore be possible for cross-border cooperation programmes, in particular, to chose several thematic objectives and not be restricted by orientations defined for them in advance;

13.

notes that sustainable territorial cohesion can only be achieved if people in the regions can be drawn in and involved. It should therefore be made possible for ETC programmes to continue to support civil-society and cultural measures (such as specific exchange projects), of which very successful examples can be found in existing programmes. The Committee therefore calls for the thematic objectives to be extended accordingly;

14.

welcomes the Commission's proposal to ensure continuity in the transnational cooperation strand but is nonetheless critical of its intention to restrict the additional investment priority under transnational cooperation to the implementation of macro-regional and sea-basin strategies. Given the numerous challenges currently facing the regions, and existing deficiencies, other regions, sub-regions and functional areas also need appropriate investment priorities;

15.

agrees that interregional cooperation should aim to reinforce the effectiveness of cohesion policy by encouraging exchange of experience between regions and by harnessing the results of this exchange under the Growth and Jobs objective. The Committee feels that this exchange of experience should be broad-based and that its role should not be limited to complementing FP7;

16.

feels that the Committee should play an active role in promoting ETC and in identifying and overcoming obstacles to its implementation so as to optimise synergies with the other strands of cohesion policy;

17.

welcomes the proposed increase in allocations for ETC;

18.

does not think it makes sense for the proposed 75 % level of cofinancing for operational programmes within the European Territorial Cooperation objective, set in the general regulation, to be lower than the level of cofinancing for less developed regions under the Growth and Jobs objective. This lower level of cofinancing may make ETC programmes in these less developed regions unappealing. The Committee of the Regions sees no foundation for this difference and calls for the cofinancing level to be set at 85 % for both objectives; neither does it see any foundation for the cofinancing rate that is to be applied to the extra allocation for interregional cooperation in the outermost regions to stand at 50 %, and calls for it to be set at 85 %;

19.

points out that co-financing does not always come from the programme partners, Member States or other public bodies, but may also come from beneficiaries. It is therefore not possible to impose a blanket requirement on participating Member States to provide the co-financing necessary to implement the cooperation programme. The commitment provided for in the Commission's proposal should therefore be deleted;

20.

thinks that, in order to maintain the quality of cooperation, the general regulation needs to retain the present conditions for the level of cofinancing established by Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006 (general regulation), where the relevant paragraphs read as follows: (Article 53(3)): ‘For operational programmes under the European territorial cooperation objective in which at least one participant belongs to a Member State whose average GDP per capita for the period 2001 to 2003 was below 85 % of the EU-25 average during the same period, the contribution from the ERDF shall not be higher than 85 % of the eligible expenditure. For all other operational programmes, the contribution from the ERDF shall not be higher than 75 % of the eligible expenditure co-financed by the ERDF.’ (Article 53(4)): ‘The contribution from the Funds at the priority axis level shall not be subject to the ceilings set out in paragraph 3 and in Annex III. However, it shall be fixed so as to ensure compliance with the maximum amount of contribution from the Funds and the maximum contribution rate per Fund fixed at the level of the operational programme;’

21.

does not consider it appropriate to set the maximum cofinancing rate at the level of each priority, as set out in the general regulation. It should be possible to adjust the level of cofinancing within the various priority axes in order to give beneficiaries an incentive to meet certain strategic priorities. It would be good for each programme to lay down the level of cofinancing for each measure according to its type, with not all measures receiving the maximum degree of support;

22.

agrees that cooperation programmes involving outermost regions should receive at least 150 % of the ERDF support they received in 2007–2013 and that, in addition, EUR 50 million should be allocated from resources for interregional cooperation for the cooperation of outermost regions.

23.

calls for special conditions to be set for areas which were external borders of the Community on 30 April 2004 and on 31 December 2006 and which ceased to be so on the day after that date, as is the case in the current programming period according to Article 52 of the general regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 1083/2006). Seven years of support cannot be considered long enough to eliminate the problems in these areas. The Committee of the Regions points out that increased support for former EU border areas will not only serve to raise the economic level of the regions in question, but also has a notable impact on creating a sense of belonging to Europe and being connected and on removing prejudices;

24.

is critical of the fact that the requirements set out in Article 7(2)(a) would significantly increase programme planning costs compared with the current period, with no discernable added value;

25.

notes that, due to its multilateral nature, ETC cannot be managed using partnership agreements. It should therefore be explicitly excluded from the scope of that instrument;

26.

deems it extremely important to draft a directive for applying, in practical terms, the state aid rules to ETC programmes, and calls for private operators, in particular small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to be included as possible beneficiaries of cross-border and transnational cooperation measures, where there is agreement among all the Member States concerned by the programme in question;

27.

calls for greater attention to be paid to the wide differences across Europe in administrative structures at local and regional level when defining the target groups for ETC programmes. The aim must be to take better account of the diversity of organisational structures among public stakeholders in the regions of the Member States. In particular, public bodies should not be excluded from participation for having a private organisational structure,

28.

notes that both the scope and the frequency of reporting obligations have been increased, and calls for them to be kept to a minimum. The Committee therefore opposes the proposal to bring the deadline for the annual implementation report forward from 30 June to 30 April of the following year. The need to coordinate several programme partners – speaking several languages – entails higher costs and therefore more time;

29.

welcomes the establishment of common output and result indicators in order to achieve objectives more effectively and focus more closely on impact, and to enable cross-programme evaluation. However, the indicators proposed in the annex to the ETC Regulation are in many cases inappropriate to specific ETC requirements and are not able to describe or measure the quality of ETC. The Committee therefore calls for the catalogue of indicators to be revised to allow ETC-specific results to be depicted appropriately;

30.

in principle welcomes the limiting of technical assistance to 6 % of the total amount but not less than EUR 1,5 million, but feels that the requirement to shift all information-sharing to electronic data exchange systems by 31 December 2014, using technical assistance, is problematic;

31.

advocates basically retaining the management structures established in the 2007-2013 period for implementing the operational programmes, maintaining general continuity of structures, and assigning tasks and competences more clearly to the various bodies implementing the programmes;

32.

welcomes the possibility of combining the functions of the managing and certifying authorities (Article 113 of the Common Provisions Regulation), but opposes the requirement to combine them in ETC (Article 22 of the ETC Regulation) and emphatically rejects the proposed accreditation of managing authorities and controllers;

33.

welcomes the endeavour to improve coordination between European Territorial Cooperation programmes and other cohesion policy instruments; to this end, the yield on Community financing of cooperation projects must be increased by disseminating the results of these projects, seeking to multiply their impact and avoiding duplication of measures which are already tried and tested;

34.

points out that if a mechanism is to emerge for ensuring coordination between funds and other instruments, it is vital to have coordination between these funds and instruments at EU level and at implementation level in the Member States. It is important to introduce identical and coordinated procedures, the same management, monitoring of controls, cost eligibility, methods of reporting indicators, and so on. It would also be very useful to ensure coordination between individual countries, since European Territorial Cohesion programmes involve ever more countries. Particular attention must be paid to coordination with external financial instruments. Accordingly, the Committee of the Regions asks the Commission to establish a methodology for the coordination of programmes;

35.

points out that Article 10 of the proposal for a regulation on the European Social Fund COM(2011) 607 final addresses transnational cooperation, which covers the same period as the ETC regulation, but has no connection with the latter regulation. However, it is precisely coordination between European Territorial Cooperation funded from the ERDF and that funded from the ESF that the Committee of the Regions deems the most important, since the right combination of activities from these two funds can achieve the necessary synergies. Activities generally carried out in connection with the ESF are likely to be highly effective in cross-border cooperation, in particular, since there is usually a similarity between border areas of neighbouring countries in terms of labour market, social problems and so on. Activities that correspond thematically to the ESF are a very important part of all European Territorial Cooperation programmes and the Committee of the Regions therefore calls on the Commission to devote the appropriate attention to their coordination. If there is no improvement in coordination, it should at least be made possible to fund ETC activities that are thematically related to the ESF from the ERDF;

36.

thinks it would be very useful to coordinate the new Connecting Europe Facility with European Territorial Cooperation programmes, since this new instrument should cover cross-border and international relations;

37.

considers it very important to ensure coordination between European Territorial Cooperation programmes and instruments for providing EU financial aid to third countries. A system should be established in these programmes themselves through which they would be coordinated with individual European Territorial Cooperation programmes so that there are no obstacles to entities from third countries being involved in joint projects. This system should, among other things, ensure conformity of procedures, cost eligibility etc. between ETC programmes in Member States and pre-accession and neighbourhood programmes. It should also ensure that third countries provide access, administration and allocation of sufficient financing from pre-accession or neighbourhood programmes for ETC programmes;

38.

agrees that it is necessary to clarify the applicable rules concerning financial management, programming, monitoring, evaluation and control regarding the participation of third countries in transnational and interregional cooperation programmes and also that those rules should be established in the relevant cooperation programme and/or the relevant financial agreement between the Commission, each of the third countries and the Member State hosting the managing authority of the relevant cooperation programme. However, the Committee of the Regions points out the need to ensure that any problems or tardiness of the third country do not lead to a delay in transnational and interregional programmes that would threaten their entire implementation;

39.

emphasises the role of the EGTC as a vital tool for strengthening territorial cooperation. Thus calls again for the amended EGTC regulation, which has no particular implications for the EU budget, to be immediately adopted without waiting for adoption of the entire legislative package on post-2013 cohesion policy. Also urges Member States to remove all administrative barriers that either discourage the establishment of an EGTC or discriminate against the EGTC option – especially as regards taxation and staff recruitment – compared to other legal instruments;

40.

points out that although the Member States should be encouraged to confer the task of managing authorities on EGTCs, the European Commission should put forward standard mechanisms for clarifying the provisions in Article 25(3) of this proposal for a regulation, which obliges the Member State where the EGTC is registered or where the lead beneficiary is located to repay amounts unduly paid to beneficiaries from other countries. This obligation on countries where an EGTC is registered or where the lead beneficiary is located may make them much less willing to transfer their powers for managing programmes to the EGTC, since they may be liable for something over which they have no real influence. For this reason, the Committee of the Regions thinks that it should be confirmed that an authority in the Member State of the beneficiary of an amount unduly paid may be mandated by an authority in the Member State where the EGTC is registered for the recovery of the amount; alternatively, the conditions in force in the current programming period should be applied, where the responsibility is borne by the Member State in which the beneficiary that is required to return amounts unduly paid is located;

41.

welcomes the introduction of a flat-rate for workers as a very good step that will considerably simplify matters for beneficiaries. This flat-rate for workers should also be the same for all countries in an operation, since they are doing the same work. Control methods and cost eligibility should also be unified. However, the Committee is opposed to restricting this flat rate to a maximum of 15 % of all costs, as territorial cooperation is by nature very labour intensive and 15 % is far below the current average percentage for staff costs;

42.

attaches great importance to the following issues: environmental protection, resource efficiency, climate change mitigation and adaptation, risk prevention and risk management in the selection of operations, the prevention of any discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation, and the promotion of equal opportunities between the sexes. Nevertheless the Committee does not think it appropriate to require a description of their application in every programme. These stipulations in the regulation could greatly complicate and paralyse small cross-border cooperation programmes, in particular. The Committee of the Regions therefore recommends that they should not be applied across the board, but only for the priorities and kinds of operation where this makes sense and is relevant, since it could lead to a mandatory – but also meaningless and illogical – justifying of operations that have nothing to do with such issues;

43.

considers it important that beneficiaries cooperate in the development, implementation, staffing and financing of operations. However, with regard to smaller projects in particular, in other words, projects allocated less than EUR 35 000 from the ERDF, the obligation to meet the four criteria for cooperation can hamper their development and implementation; therefore believes that it is not appropriate for such projects to be required to meet this condition; proposes that these smaller projects be required, as has been the case to date, to meet at least two of the four criteria;

44.

in view of the emphasis placed on coordination, effectiveness, removing disparities and comprehensiveness, proposes that a new initiative be launched for the new programming period to support cross-border coordination of thematic and development strategies (transport, energy, labour market, environmental protection, science and research, etc.) and the creation of integrated approaches. In this way, cross-border insufficiencies and development potential, as well as an integrated approach to addressing these, could be identified. It would be expedient to involve both public and private entities and financial resources from various sources in addressing these clearly identified problem areas and in exploiting the identified development potential. It would appear very useful to use the potential of EGTCs and Euroregions for this instrument. Sufficient funds should be allocated for this initiative within ETC to ensure its effectiveness.