Part Four: The Making of Territorial Cohesion Policy

Part Four: The Making of Territorial Cohesion Policy

Had it come to pass, ratification would thus have made an end to the competence issue around the ESDP. Admittedly, in the third Cohesion Report it is less than explicit about this, merely talking in terms of publishing a strategic document on cohesion policy as such before the end of the current Programming Period. However, all being well, at that time the Constitution with its articles on territorial cohesion would have been in force. Note also that the European Spatial Planning Observation Network (ESPON), whose work has already been discussed as providing the basis for the document adopted under the Luxembourg Presidency, would by that time have come up with definite conclusions, giving the Commission plenty of ammunition to spend in formulating proposals as regards EU territorial cohesion policy.

Having been the drivers behind the ESDP process, Member States seemed thus to have lost the initiative to the Commission. They could of course have decided to resuscitate the ESDP process on their own, without Commission involvement, the first of Van Ravesteyn and Evers’ options for the future. However, the effort would have been unprecedented, making this an unlikely prospect. Confusingly, as will become evident, now that the Constitution’s fate hangs in the balance, it is precisely this option that points the way forward.

Van Ravesteyn and Evers’ third option, the European Council taking the initiative, is an interesting one. The present author has himself considered this as an option, but as a fanciful one. (FALUDI, 2004c) Spatial planning is not an issue for such a grand assembly to discuss, not even under the guise of territorial cohesion policy. Anyway, what could the European Council do? Invite the Commission to prepare a requisite policy? This would have been apposite in areas not covered by the treaties. As regards territorial cohesion, once it was under the Constitution (and, once again, ratification was the expectation against which Van Ravesteyn and Evers formulated their three options) the Commission would need no prompting from the European Council. Clearly, however, now that the Constitution is less likely to come any time soon, any initiative from the European Council would be welcome, but frankly this is unlikely to happen.

At the time Van Ravesteyn and Evers’ second option, territorial cohesion policy initiated by the Commission, remained thus the only one to consider.

Would Commission-led territorial cohesion policy be a welcome prospect?

At this point it is worth stressing a fact that is not often appreciated. The reader thinking that territorial cohesion policy on the scale of the EU would reasonably require a team of Brussels experts to formulate will be surprised to hear that there is no such team to speak of. By way of illustration, one lone Commission official acts as the liaison with ESPON. All the information generated by the hundreds of researchers involved has to go through this eye of the needle before being translated into EU territorial cohesion policy. No wonder that there is heavy emphasis on easy to comprehend territorial cohesion indicators.

So there is a problem of capacity. Member State involvement can help to reduce this. Experts from Member States are involved, even where the Community Method does apply. Many proposals for Community regulations are being formulated by one of the hundreds of committees meeting at a purpose-made building, the Centre Borschette in Brussels. For instance, there is a ‘Committee for the Development and Conversion of Regions’ advising on regional policy, with a sub-committee ‘Spatial and Urban Development’ discussing territorial cohesion policy. However, these so-called ‘comitology’-committees meet at the pleasure of the Commission and pursue an agenda set by it. As against this, the so-called ‘Committee on Spatial Development’ doing the technical work on the ESDP met with the representative of the current EU Presidency in the chair, thus signifying the leading role of Members States. (FALUDI and WATERHOUT, 2002) Involvement of Member States may be responsible for the, albeit often indirect and modest, but noticeable success of the ESDP in influencing agendas in at least some of them, surprisingly including those from southern Europe. (JANIN RIVOLIN and FALUDI, 2005)

An additional consideration is this. To gain acceptance, EU territorial cohesion policy – even if it were to be a formal shared competence under the Constitution – would benefit from stakeholder involvement. So one can only hope that the Commission would involve Member States, even in the now less likely event of it gaining the right of initiative under the Community Method.

In so doing, what is called the Open Method of Co-ordination, or OMC, touted in the White Paper on European Governance for areas in which the Community Method does not apply, should thus be invoked. OMC has received the blessing of the Lisbon European Council in 2000. More in detail, the Lisbon European Council. It involved:

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  EU guidelines combined with short-, medium- and long-term targets;
  
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  indicators and benchmarks tailored to the needs of Member States and sectors by means of comparing best practices;
  
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  translating EU guidelines into national and regional policies with specific targets and appropriate measures, taking into account their differences;
  
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  monitoring, evaluation and peer review. (DE LA PORTE and POCHET, 2002, 28)
  

Before discussing this further, it is worth taking a look at what the third Cohesion Report (CEC, 2004a) and the Commission’s proposals in its wake for the modified regulations for the Structural Funds (CEC, 2004d) say about delivery mechanisms for cohesion policy and also at the proposals of the Barroso Commission for reviving the Lisbon Strategy. (CEC, 2005)

Claiming that the “…delivery mechanism for cohesion policy has demonstrated its capacity to deliver quality projects of European interest on the ground while maintaining high standards in the management and control of public expenditure” (CEC, 2004a, xxxi) the third Cohesion Report nevertheless announces a number of reforms. The aims are to encourage a more strategic approach, to introduce further decentralisation, to reinforce the performance and quality of programmes and to simplify their management. Under a more strategic orientation it states:

“The Commission proposes that an overall strategic document for cohesion policy should be adopted by the Council, with an opinion of the Parliament, in advance of the new programming period and on the basis of a Commission proposal, defining clear priorities for Member States and regions.

The strategic approach would guide the policy in its implementation and make it more politically accountable. It would help to more tightly specify the desired level of synergy to be achieved between cohesion policy and the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas and would increase the consistency with the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines ad the European Employment Strategy.

Each year, the European Institutions would examine progress on the strategic priorities and results achieved on the basis of a report by the Commission summarising Member States’ progress reports.” (Op cit., xxxii)

The Commission intends to cover all aspects of cohesion, and not just economic and social cohesion. One can conclude this from the publication by the Commission of the ‘Interim Territorial Cohesion Report’ drawing on the work of ESPON. (CEC, 2004e) The Annual Management Plan 2004 of DG Regio (CEC, 2004f, 6) confirms this where it says that the DG will prepare the future economic, social and territorial cohesion policy for the period after 2006.

To be able to divine the Commission’s reasoning, one had better look at the report of an internal Working Group on ‘Multi-level Governance: Linking and Networking the Various Regional and Local Levels‘ making recommendations to the Forward Studies Unit preparing the White Paper on European Governance in 2001. (WORKING GROUP 4c, 2001) This group proposed already years ago to produce, at the beginning of each Programming Period for the Structural Funds, a ‘European Scheme of Reference for Sustainable Development and Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion (SERDEC)’. One cannot go wrong in assuming that this has been an inspiration for the third Cohesion Report proposing a strategic document for cohesion policy.

Indeed, no sooner the ink had dried on the Constitution, and the Commission published ‘Proposals for the New Structural Funds Regulations for the Period 2007-2013’ on July 14, 2004. Title II on the ‘Strategic Approach to Cohesion’ announces ‘Community level strategic guidelines on economic, social and territorial cohesion defining a framework for the intervention of the Funds.’ (CEC. 2004e, 32) Links will be forged with the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines and the European Strategy for Employment – areas in which it might be added OMC applies. Member States are called upon to present a national strategic reference framework each, indicating national and regional priorities in order to promote sustainable development, and making reference to the national action plan on employment. As from 2008, they will be expected to present progress reports. As from the year after, the Commission will present summary reports, including proposals for follow-up measures to be debated by the Council and leading where necessary to the adoption of conclusions on the implementation of the Community strategic guidelines.

The Commission proposal refers to current Treaty provisions and the manner in which territorial cohesion will be addressed remains unclear. The scope of the proposed Community Strategic Guidelines on Cohesion is said to include territorial cohesion, but there is no subsequent mention of the concept until the section on ex-post evaluation of policies. So where the document refers to future Cohesion Reports, it says that the Commission will take initiatives as regards economic and social cohesion, thus eschewing any mention of territorial cohesion. At the same time it adds that it “shall also propose, if necessary, proposals concerning any adjustments linked to new Community policy initiatives in the strategic guidelines on cohesion” (Op cit., 36), thus opening the door for territorial cohesion to be considered.

During the summer recess of 2004, Commission President designate Manual Barroso put together his team of Commissioners, with which he ran into trouble with the European Parliament. The deeper concern behind the wrangling over the attitudes and/or capabilities of individual Commissioners was about policy direction. In January 2005 this became clear: a revival of the Lisbon Strategy aimed at growth and jobs. (CEC, 2005) Cohesion policy will be in the service of this strategy. Indeed, the European Council of Heads of State and Government underlined its role in a revived Lisbon Strategy. (European Council, 2005) However, territorial cohesion got no mention at all. So whether it would form part of the deliberations in the framework of the three-year cycles of what is called ‘Lisbon governance’, with the Commission setting a framework and Member States responding with action plans of their own, remains doubtful. In May 2005, DG Regio and Cohesion presented the ‘non-paper’ on how to fit cohesion policy into Lisbon governance discussed above. (DIRECTORATES GENERAL FOR REGIONAL POLICY AND COHESION, 2005) At the Luxembourg Informal Meeting of Ministers on Regional Policy and Territorial Cohesion there was an announcement also of a white paper on territorial cohesion policy under the new regime of the Constitution, but the French and the Dutch no to it makes it unlikely that this will come out any time soon.