Page 1 sur 11 CoR President Luc van den Brande Draft Speech 5 th Territorial Dialogue for Growth and Jobs Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 18.01.10 Dear Minister Chaves, Dear Commissioner Samecki, Dear President Antich i Oliver Dear Mayor Calvo Sastre Dear President Armengol, Dear Members of the Committee of the Regions and the Lisbon Monitoring Platform, Ladies and Gentleman, It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you at this 5 th edition of the Territorial Dialogue for Growth and Jobs, organised in cooperation with the current Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The EU's Assembly of Regional and Local Representatives Rue Belliard/Belliardstraat 101 1040 Bruxelles/Brussel BELGIQUE/BELGIË Tel. +32 2282 2314 Fax +32 2282 2318 EN
Page 2 sur 11 The CoR is very grateful to the Spanish government, the government of the Balearic Islands and the City of Palma de Mallorca for hosting this event and having been excellent partners in its preparation. I am very grateful for my colleagues from Spanish regions and cities for their active contribution to the debate about the Lisbon Strategy and its future and to the discussion on the role of regions and cities in providing anti-crisis measures. After I opened at the European Summit of Regions and Cities in Prague last year a CoR Consultation on post-2010 Strategy for Sustainable Growth, not less than 7 contributions arrived from Spain. Following my request for the contribution to the survey on the European Economic Recovery Plan, we received again seven replies from Spanish regions and cities. This edition of the TD comes at a time when the debate on what come after the Lisbon strategy enters in a crucial phase. We warmly welcome the statements given last week in Madrid by President Van Rompuy, when he said that, I quote, "We now need a renewed economic Strategy, with stronger ownership at the highest level, i.e. the European Council", adding that: "The EU - as a whole - needs to be engaged in this; that means the institutions but also the Member States, their governments, as well as their regions. It must be a collective effort!"
Page 3 sur 11 Since 2006, when our monitoring activity on the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy on the ground started, the CoR has insisted on the fact that without this collective effort, the Lisbon Strategy would not have delivered. The reason for that is very simple: in all EU countries, even in the most centralised ones, local and regional authorities take the responsibility for a lot of policies related to the Lisbon objectives. Indeed, especially since the renewal of the Lisbon Strategy in 2005, they have been doing a lot of work, taking benefit from the fact that they are closer to the citizens and have profound knowledge of the specific problems of their territories. In spite of these efforts, the Lisbon Strategy did not deliver its expected results, also due to the frequent lack of coordination and integration with policies undertaken by other government levels. The CoR will further contribute to this debate, which will start at the informal European Council meeting on 11 February, and will go in more depth at the Spring Council in March - with a discussion on a draft proposal by the European Commission for a final decision in June; but a first, substantial contribution on the future strategy was already given to the Commission with the Own Initiative Opinion drafted by Ms. Christine Chapman, who will take the floor later today, and approved by the Plenary Session last December. As per the Commission's working document on the EU2020 Strategy, about which I have recently addressed a letter to President Barroso, I
Page 4 sur 11 would like to stress that a social dimension and the fight against poverty should be among the key elements of the future strategy for growth. Indeed, even before the economic crisis, Europe was experiencing increasing levels of social exclusion and persistently high levels of poverty. The new strategy must therefore place stronger emphasis on a renewed and reinvigorated social policy as a matter of urgency. At the same time, we believe that economic growth is not a goal in itself: it is a necessary condition to enable societies to raise the living conditions of their citizens. Dear colleagues, No such strategy will ever fulfil its goals without permanent involvement of local and regional authorities in its design, implementation; monitoring and evaluation, within a framework of coordinated and integrated policymaking and having recourse to multilevel governance agreements. Without a real involvement of local and regional authorities, the new strategy would fail to address local situations, opportunities and challenges. This need for flexibility is indeed acknowledged in the EC consultation document, but we recommend that this first approach be kept and further defined in the next steps of the process in order to assure that the real governance of the EU2020 be a multi-level governance and not a duplication of the current strategy relaying solely on the national level.
Page 5 sur 11 Dear Colleagues, Cohesion policy is a key regional development policy and the only EU policy to be clearly visible to all European citizens. Cohesion policy will effectively contribute to the objectives of the EU2020 Strategy. The lessons learnt from cohesion policy are far too numerous to be neglected in discussions on the future of EU strategies. The leverage effects of cohesion policy have shown to what extent cohesion policy has improved the way local and regional authorities can deliver services to citizens, beyond the mere effects of the funds invested and this should be better reflected in the EU2020 strategy as well as in the future budget review. In addition, I also believe that the Union should provide national governments with adequate incentives to carry out the necessary reforms, a need which is, once again, not addressed by the EC consultation document. And this brings us back to what has been said in Madrid. We welcome the acknowledgment by the President of the European Council that there should be "a better correlation between our overall objectives and the use of EU instruments over the coming years", and that "we need tighter governance and a better control of the process".
Page 6 sur 11 I believe - and I had recently the occasion to talk about it with President Van Rompuy - the European Council should promote a systematic involvement of the EU cities and region in the design and implementation of the new EU 2020 strategy, irrespective of the Member States' different constitutional models. In particular, we ask that: 1. Members States report systematically and in a structured way on the role of local and regional authorities when submitting annual progress reports on their national reform programmes; 2. round tables including all relevant stakeholders, and in particular all government levels, are set in each Member state with a view to monitoring the implementation of the new strategy on the ground. Indeed, giving national and territorial stakeholders a say should be an ingredient of the new strategy; 3. the CoR is charged of submitting every two years to the European Council a monitoring report on the involvement of the local and regional authorities in the implementation of the new strategy; 4. the CoR's Territorial Dialogue for Growth and Jobs takes a place in the governance of the new EU 2020 strategy, as an exchange between the Council Presidency, the European Commission, the EP, on the one hand, and the CoR and representatives of EU local and regional authorities on the other hand.
Page 7 sur 11 Until now, we have been talking of medium and long-term issues, but we do not forget that the first concern of the EU citizens today remains the economic and financial crisis. In spite of signs of recovery, favoured by the policies implemented by the EU and its Members States under the European Economic Recovery Plan, employment prospects are still dire - not only for conjuncture reasons, but also because firms are taking the opportunity to restructure their operations worldwide, including painful employment cuts and plant closures here and there. Ladies and gentlemen, No "national" recovery plan will ever be implemented properly without the timely involvement of the regions and cities. Most regional recovery plans are drawn up to supplement national ones, which have usually been drawn up without any regional input. This indeed holds true for the European Economic Recovery Plan. In April 2009 we urged that the regions assess the implementation of measures within the framework of the best practice approach and called for the evaluation of the impact of the various recovery plans in the European regions. Against this background and to answer these calls, the CoR Lisbon Monitoring Platform conducted a survey "European Economic Recovery Plan in Regions & Cities: One Year On" The aim of this Survey to which 74 EU regions and cities contributed - was to assess how and with what effect the EERP is being implemented
Page 8 sur 11 at grass roots level, as perceived by the EU local and regional authorities. I am happy to share with you some fresh conclusions from the survey report (which you can find distributed in the room). Firstly, the economic and financial crisis has hit hard and is far from being over - unemployment is on the rise, companies are experiencing reduced turnover, insufficient credit and liquidity constraints. Public finances at the regional and local levels are under pressure because of lower revenues, increased social and welfare expenditure and lower commitments for future budgets. As a consequence, local and regional authorities are experiencing increased difficulties in managing current expenses. I encourage you to have a look at the map on page 25 of the Survey Report the map, in literally colourful but rather pessimistic manner shows a change in unemployment rate between second quarter of 2008 and second quarter of 2009. In this specific period, the labour market situation deteriorated in nearly 8 out of 10 of NUTS 2 regions! The employment forecast for 2010 is even gloomier as the unemployment level will continue to rise in all but 2 Member States. The second set of conclusions from the Survey concerned local and regional actions introduced to counteract effects of the crisis. In total, 85% of respondents have introduced anti-crisis measures. While 60% of
Page 9 sur 11 them have adopted comprehensive anti-crisis (regional or local) strategies or action plans, others have made extensive use of existing policy instruments. Emergency measures, aimed at maintaining existing jobs and/or providing financial support to SMEs, were sometimes coupled with longer-term measures related to innovation or energy efficiency. For instance, I was happy to see that in these turbulent times, in the middle of 2009, the government of the Balearic Islands presented the Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation of the Balearic Islands 2009-2012, which aims to improve competitiveness through knowledge, technology and innovation. As justly acknowledged in the Plan, the main economic activity of the islands - tourism - needs indeed to benefit from technological knowledge. This is a right path to follow for regions to get out of the crisis stronger than before 1. Thirdly, ongoing policy response has made significant recourse to EU policy instruments. The European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund have been widely used as financial support for local and regional measures. Many regions, where possible, brought forward the implementation of financing from the structural funds in order to start projects even faster. 1 http://www.mallorcaweb.com/news/2009/02/plan-cti/
Page 10 sur 11 Fourthly, when it comes to the knowledge about the EERP and perception of its contribution to countering the crisis it is still limited. The slow pace at which actions implementing the Plan and their impact become visible at the regional level could be a reason why not all regions and cities acknowledge the assistance of the European Economic Recovery Plan. And finally, the findings of this survey support the CoR view that cooperation between the local and regional authorities as well as partnership between these authorities and the private sector has proved successful in many instances in shaping urgent anti-crisis policy plans. Ladies and gentlemen, The way we counter-act the crisis tells a lot about the way that the European Union works and will add to the credibility of the new EU2020 Strategy. With 2010 being a pivotal year for regions and cities in getting out of the crisis and taking into account the fact that the effects of the crisis might result in weakened territorial cohesion if they are not countered by policies targeting specific problems in a differentiated manner, I would like to ask for all government levels to cooperate in a spirit of a genuine application of multi-level governance principles, promoting economic recovery in the EU. Furthermore, the role of European funds, already contributing significantly to counteracting effects of the crisis, must be maximised by providing conditions that would allow for accelerated and improved spending of financial means.
Page 11 sur 11 In 2010, the CoR would continue monitoring the implementation of the European Economic Recovery Plan in regions and cities and cooperation between local and regional authorities with the national and EU levels in drawing and implementing anti-crisis actions. There is a lot on the table to be discussed today, ladies and gentleman, and I look forward to listening to all of you. Thank you for your attention.