29.5.2010   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 141/5

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asserts that this high quality of life must be achieved within the limits of sustainability set by a finite planet  (1), and premised on achieving a socially cohesive and just society, where the value and contribution of all individuals and groups is optimised, and where incentives and support measures are focused on tackling poverty and social exclusion and building a sustainable economy;

—

underlines the importance of a well-financed, EU-wide Cohesion policy involving all regions of Europe, as a key factor in supporting delivery of the new Strategy, and rejects any moves to renationalise structural funds or to remove the regional dimension from cohesion policy in the review of the future EU budget;

—

notes that EU Cohesion Policy has an established multi-level governance structure for implementing the Structural Funds programmes, and asserts that the new Strategy should use these existing partnership structures to address the current weaknesses in the governance structures. An explicit alignment of governance structures with the Regional Programmes in the EU Cohesion Policy, provides a far more effective way of ensuring joined up policy making;

—

calls for EU leaders to establish, as a core priority, to develop Europe's competitiveness in the green economy, to enable the EU to take a leading role in the transformation of the global economy to a sound and sustainable basis. In particular this means leading by example, prioritising investments in new green technologies, R&D, including renewable energy production, energy efficiency, sustainable methods of production and consumption, ICT and broadband infrastructures in remote communities, as well as promoting ecological protection and preservation. Europe’s universities, research centres, and SMEs have a key role to play in driving this agenda forward (2). This requires structural changes in the European economy, including co-ordination of macro economic policy and active labour market policies in order to support the move to a green economy.

Rapporteur

:

Mrs Christine Chapman (UK/PES), Member of the National Assembly for Wales

1.

supports the development of a successor to the current Lisbon Strategy beyond 2010, however, believes there is a need to re-balance the Strategy and merge the European Sustainable Development Strategy and Lisbon Strategy; whilst welcoming the commitment to empower people in inclusive societies and create a competitive, connected and greener economy as set out in the Commission consultation on the future of the strategy published on 24 November, is disappointed that the Commission does not propose a more ambitious and overarching vision, to rebalance and re-orientate the strategy towards making Europe a sustainable and socially just and cohesive society;

2.

underlines that the current Lisbon Strategy has failed to give sufficient recognition to the essential role played by local and regional authorities across the EU in implementing and communicating the strategy on the ground, and reiterates the call in the White Paper on Multi-Level Governance for this to be redressed in the new Strategy;

3.

notes the widespread uncertainty amongst regional and local authorities about the overall purpose of the current Lisbon Strategy, which can be addressed by establishing clear objectives in the new Strategy, and communicating these effectively to people on the ground;

4.

regrets that the Lisbon Strategy, which was meant to contribute to the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), has not had the desired impact in terms of improved joint economic governance at EU level or better coordination of the Member States' economic policies; and regrets that in response to the current economic crisis, many Member States have adopted economic policies based on national considerations only, rather than seeking coordinated actions within the framework of the single European market;

5.

calls for the new Strategy to have an explicit overarching objective focused on a high quality of life and well-being for all EU citizens. Employment is a key element of this as is material wealth, however, there are other factors that must be taken into account in order to get a full picture of quality of life and well-being, including the wider societal and environmental contexts within which people live (3);

6.

asserts that this high quality of life must be achieved within the limits of sustainability set by a finite planet  (4), and premised on achieving a socially cohesive and just society, where the value and contribution of all individuals and groups is optimised, and where incentives and support measures are focused on tackling poverty and social exclusion and building a sustainable economy;

7.

underlines the crucial role of education and training in raising awareness of sustainability issues and developing the creative and entrepreneurial talents of Europe’s citizens, and the necessity of building a lifelong learning culture;

8.

proposes the new Strategy be given a new name to avoid confusion with the ‘Treaty of Lisbon’ to highlight the new approach of the Strategy. For example ‘Quality of Life for All: Building a Sustainable Future for Europe in the World’ or in shortened version the ‘Sustainable Europe Strategy’;

9.

calls for a more effective communication strategy, involving local and regional authorities, to raise awareness and promote the key messages of the new Strategy;

10.

asserts that the current financial, economic, social and environmental crisis has radically altered the context in which the debate about the future of the Lisbon Strategy takes place, which means ‘business as usual’ is not the right option. It presents a number of immediate challenges, in particular tackling growing levels of unemployment across Europe, notably amongst young people, and addressing the spectre of protectionism. It has demonstrated structural weaknesses in the global economic model and highlighted the need for a new and sustainable approach, in ecological and in social and economic terms, and for tighter regulation of the banking and financial sector;

11.

reiterates that before the economic crisis struck Europe, and when the economy was considered to be performing relatively well, high levels of poverty continued to exist across Europe as well as growing levels of income inequality. According to figures published by the European Commission in October 2008, 16 % of the European population lives below the poverty line, one in ten people live in a household where nobody works, and 19 % of children live under the threat of poverty (5). Tackling poverty and the growing wealth inequalities in Europe must be one of the core aims of the future Strategy;

12.

notes that there are a number of longer-term challenges facing Europe, including demographic change, climate change, energy security, globalisation (6), and achieving territorial cohesion across the EU, which the new strategy must address. Regrets that territorial cohesion is not given more visibility as a guiding principle in the Commission's consultation paper on the EU 2020 strategy; calls for the Commission, in line with the requirements on Territorial Cohesion set out in the Treaty of Lisbon, to make a commitment to present a territorial impact assessment for all new legislative proposals affecting local or regional authority remits;

13.

notes that as a legacy of the crisis, there will be significant pressure on public finances over the coming years as a result of the social, financial and economic crisis, it is essential that there is an effective alignment of resources and funding at the local, regional, national and European level, to ensure that the right investments are made that will deliver the broad goals of the new Strategy. To enable municipalities and regions to contribute effectively to implementing the Lisbon strategy, it is essential to ensure that the European Union and the Member States fully respect the principles of the Council of Europe's Charter of Local Self-Government as regards the financial resources of local authorities (Article 9);

14.

believes that achieving effective social cohesion and meeting long-term challenges both require a territorial approach across all policies, which takes account of the specific characteristics that exist at the regional and local level across Europe. Sufficient resources must also be earmarked from the Community budget to support balanced territorial development in Europe;

15.

proposes that the new Strategy prioritises investing in a green economy, addresses social cohesion, ensuring a multi-level governance approach, as well as taking a fresh look at how we measure the impact of the new Strategy;

16.

calls for the EU’s Climate Change targets and commitments to be incorporated into the new Strategy, to create a low emissions economy across Europe;

17.

calls for EU leaders to establish, as a core priority, to develop Europe's competitiveness in the green economy, to enable the EU to take a leading role in the transformation of the global economy to a sound and sustainable basis. In particular this means leading by example, prioritising investments in new green technologies, R&D, including renewable energy production, energy efficiency, sustainable methods of production and consumption, ICT and broadband infrastructures in remote communities, as well as promoting ecological protection and preservation. Europe’s universities, research centres, and SMEs have a key role to play in driving this agenda forward (7). This requires structural changes in the European economy, including co-ordination of macro economic policy and active labour market policies in order to support the move to a green economy;

18.

calls for a European Green Skills and Green Jobs Strategy, to provide a framework for investing in the skills and knowledge to support the development of a sustainable economy. Future EU funding programmes, including the Life Long Learning Programme and European Social Fund, should be focused on supporting investments in ‘green jobs’ and ‘green skills’, with a particular emphasis on new, dynamic and innovative SMEs (8);

19.

calls for the EU to adopt a consistent framework of incentives and support mechanisms (Green Better Regulation) to support development of a sustainable economy across Europe;

20.

calls for priority to be given to sharing best practice on innovative approaches that create incentives in individual Member States that encourage and reward EU citizens, businesses and public authorities, to adopt green behaviour and penalize ‘non-sustainable’ behaviour;

21.

reiterates that a green approach can create a virtual circle, tackling economic and societal problems. For example recent changes to Structural Funds regulations make it possible to support energy efficiency measures in low-income households;

22.

emphasises the importance of bottom-up initiatives by local communities to deliver change on the ground (9);

23.

underlines the value and importance of social insurance and social protection systems that protect the most vulnerable in society, and the need to preserve a strong European Social Model (10);

24.

recognises, in accordance with the protocol on services of general interest appended to the Lisbon Treaty, the essential role played by such services, especially social services of general interest, whose organisation and financing must be better safeguarded, as well as the importance of local public services for citizens;

25.

calls for actions to tackle child poverty and cross-generational poverty in families, and underlines the need to maintain the Barcelona targets on child care services (11);

26.

underlines the importance of a well-financed, EU-wide Cohesion policy involving all regions of Europe, as a key factor in supporting delivery of the new Strategy, and rejects any moves to renationalise structural funds or to remove the regional dimension from cohesion policy in the review of the future EU budget;

27.

calls for a commitment to make more effective use of the existing knowledge and best practice within EU Structural Funds programmes to the benefit of every region in the EU;

28.

calls for EU leaders use the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, to make a commitment to prioritising social cohesion and social inclusion, aimed at tackling growing unemployment, disparities in regional economic performance, social exclusion, worklessness, and economic inactivity. The CoR agrees with the Barca Report that EU Structural Funds Programmes are a key tool for tackling social exclusion;

29.

calls for action to address the growing spectre of unemployment among young people, by prioritising investments in education, training and skills development, including schemes that encourage mobility of young people. We welcome the Council Recommendation on the Mobility of Young Volunteers adopted in November 2008, and support the Commission’s proposal for 2011 to be designated the European Year of Volunteering;

30.

calls for greater recognition to the key contribution of women in the workforce and women as entrepreneurs and innovators. Europe has a long way to go on gender equality as a recent report by the European Commission demonstrates which highlights in particular the gender pay gap as a persistent problem, as well as difficulties in addressing work-life balance and gender stereotypes (12)  (13); hopes, for this reason, that recommendations and incentives are envisaged to keep women in work and get them into work;

31.

calls for greater recognition of the value and contribution of all members of society. The new Strategy should place a value on the importance of ‘civil society’, in particular the contribution of the third sector, carers and volunteers to the well-being of others, which often goes unrecognised. Equally the new Strategy should encourage active ageing policies and inter-generational initiatives;

32.

argues that the future EU Cohesion Policy should include support for local development initiatives, targeted at specific urban and rural communities facing particular socio-economic challenges. This approach has been used successfully in the past through initiatives like EQUAL, LEADER, URBAN and within the mainstream Objective 1 and 2 programmes;

33.

welcomes an approach in which state aid rules make it possible to support local and sustainable community based economic production (e.g. through prioritising green procurement, access to broadband infrastructure in remote and rural communities);

34.

underlines the need for the involvement of local and regional authorities in shaping, delivering and evaluating the new Strategy;

35.

highlights the importance of regional and local authorities in taking a lead in responding to the financial and economic crisis on the ground, to address the immediate and short-term challenges (14);

36.

calls for better co-ordination and cooperation between the different levels of government in Europe, and for a much stronger regional dimension to the new Strategy;

37.

calls on EU leaders to ensure future EU spending is aligned towards delivering the key objectives of the new Strategy, applying the success of Lisbon earmarking in Structural Funds across all relevant areas of the EU budget;

38.

calls for stronger incentives for national governments to commit themselves to delivering the new Strategy’s objectives, including as appropriate binding targets, to ensure effective implementation on the ground;

39.

welcomes consideration of linking the Strategy to the term of office of the European Commission and the European Parliament. There should be a more clearly defined role for the European Parliament as the democratically elected body of Europe in the new Strategy, working in partnership with the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee;

40.

notes that EU Cohesion Policy has an established multi-level governance structure for implementing the Structural Funds programmes, and asserts that the new Strategy should use these existing partnership structures to address the current weaknesses in the governance structures. An explicit alignment of governance structures with the Regional Programmes in the EU Cohesion Policy, provides a far more effective way of ensuring joined up policy making;

41.

proposes that these existing partnerships take an active role in the preparation of the National Reform Programmes (NRPs), with the Structural Funds Programmes providing a regional chapter to delivery of the overarching goals of the NRPs; expresses concern at the absence of concrete suggestions in the consultation paper on how the EU 2020 strategy will involve local and regional governments, and regional parliaments and assemblies in developing and implementing the strategy and the NRPs;

42.

notes a growing level of dissatisfaction at the use of GDP as the primary indicator to measure economic performance, and calls for new indicators to be developed that provide a more meaningful way of measuring prosperity, well-being and quality of life in Europe (15);

43.

calls for such measures to take account of wider societal and environmental challenges, including child poverty indicators, income distribution, levels of CO2 and other emissions, impact on biodiversity, and other elements that form part of a broad definition of well-being, and that reflect differences at sub-national level across Europe (16);

44.

calls for local and regional authorities to be directly involved in determining targets and indicators for the new Strategy. The Covenant of the Mayors signed in January 2009, demonstrates how regional and local authorities can drive forward key policy issues, and be more ambitious in their commitments than national and European levels of government;

45.

underlines that this opinion draws on the results of the CoR consultation on the future of the Strategy, launched in Prague in March 2009, as well as an active research phase in Brussels, Wales, and the UK. The Lisbon Monitoring Platform contributed a comprehensive analysis of the results of the consultation in a timely manner;

46.

considers it essential that the CoR continues to monitor implementation of the new Strategy on the ground through its networks, in particular the Lisbon Monitoring Platform.