For the President of the Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, the European Union must take into account regions and cities if it wants to curb euroscepticism. Lambertz also warns against instrumentalising cohesion policy to impose unrelated standards.
Cohesion policy is an EU policy giant, though often relatively unknown. A 2015 Eurobarometer survey showed that only 34 percent of citizens are aware of the existence of such projects co-financed by the Union, despite the huge sums involved. Over the period 2014–2020, cohesion policy accounted for 34.3 percent of the total European budget, with €351 billion. Since 1989, €1.2 trillion has been injected into regions and cities.
However, for the President of the Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz , disagrees: cohesion policy is known, but not its name or origin.
Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions: People know about cohesion policy without knowing it (in German)
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“I am not so sure whether the projects of the cohesion policy are so unknown. The name is unknown. It is a term that no one understands, that no one can start with. But when I travel through Europe’s regions, I meet hundreds, not to say thousands, of people who are in either economic, social or territorial cohesion projects. And everyone – doesn’t matter whether from a rich or a poor region – tells me: without the European Union we could never have done this here and we are very glad that it exists. I think we need to communicate that even better.”
In this respect, the President regrets the budget cuts planned by the European Commission in its next long-term budget, while acknowledging that budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger has ‘put the ball at the centre of the game’ and managed to preserve the ‘essential’ aspects of cohesion policy: its coverage of all EU regions.
Nevertheless, he regrets the attitude of some of the member states, which are labelled “net contributors”.
Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions: net contributors do not exist (in German)
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“Basically – and I quote the EU Commissioner Oettinger – there is no ‘net contributor’; there are only net winners. And even those, who currently contribute more than they perhaps benefit , in purely accounting euro terms, if they take a closer look [will see] so many advantages from the existing European Union that what their contribution also is of inestimable economic value to them, at least from a macroeconomic point of view.”
Another trend that also worries Lambertz is the tendency to use cohesion policy to sanction the policies of member states that do not respect certain European rules. He is particularly concerned about the fact that the link between cohesion policy and the budgetary process of the European semester has been strengthened.
Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions: why do we sanction the regional level for policies led at national level? (in German)
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“We are talking about macroeconomic conditionalities within the framework of the European semester, and about political conditionalities. We, in the Committee of the Regions, are very sceptical about this. We actually take the view that it is unacceptable for local authorities to be penalised for misconduct on the part of national states. And, by the way, in the states that are affected [by the sanctions], this will above all be instrumentalised by eurosceptics.”
For Lambertz, Cohesion Policy should not be a tool to keep member states in line, but rather a tool to revitalise the European project, including local and regional elected representatives. They should be used as ambassadors of the European project to the citizens.
Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions: We have 1 million local and regional elected representatives (in German)
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“We have 751 European parliamentarians and 10,000 national parliamentarians. We have one million local and regional representatives who work every day on the ground to promote the interests of their citizens. If we can make it clear to them that Europe is not something that happens far away in Brussels, but that it is something that directly affects them on the ground, as far as they are concerned and where they can have a say – if we succeed, Europe will be a success. we fail, we will continue to struggle with increasing euroscepticism.”
And there is no shortage of proposals to further integrate the regional and local levels into the European decision-making process, to give a new impetus to the European project. He thus suggests that the Spitzenkandidaten process – which is in a very poor shape following the member states’ decision not to retain any of these Spitzenkandidaten – should be structured around a European constituency.
A logic that should be pushed even further in the long run, according to Lambertz.
Karl-Heinz Lambertz, President of the Committee of the Regions: on creating a new parliamentary chamber (in German)
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“We can certainly deal with ideas such as a direct election of the Head of the Commission, but then we must also talk about a stronger role for the European Parliament and, in my opinion, this also includes the creation of a second chamber, where the national and regional parliaments, for example, can have a say.”
For the time being, the regions are trying to advance in the medium term the concept of ‘active subsidiarity’, which aims to strengthen multi-level governance. They are willing to integrate territorial aspects in a transversal way into European policies.
And this is beginning to bear fruit. Recently, the European Commission has modified the criteria of the budgetary process for the European semester, introducing a territorial dimension to better guide investments at member state and regional level.
- Author: Pascal Hansens, Euranet Plus News Agency
