Examination of Witnesses (Questions 367-379)
Professor Danuta Hübner
6 MARCH 2008
Q367 Chairman: Commissioner, we are most
grateful to you for receiving us. I think the first sensible thing
a guest should ask is how much time do you have, when must you
be elsewhere?
Professor Hübner: Actually, any time you
need I can help. I have a Director's meeting later on.
Q368 Chairman: That is good to know.
We have sent you a whole list of questions. As the day has gone
on we have come to refine some of them and found others we would
like to ask. If you would like to introduce your colleagues, unless
you wanted to say something, I could then start.
Professor Hübner: Thank you very much.
It is a great pleasure for us to have you here. Thank you for
coming to Brussels. I remember from my previous time as Polish
Minister that it is a great feeling to go and be at the hearings.
I remember Lord Dahrendorf from my hearings on enlargement and
it was always a pleasure to have those discussions. Nicola De
Michelis is from DG Regio, who is working on the design of the
policy and measuring things that are sometimes impossible to measure.
Mr Tokarski is from my Cabinet, who is responsible for Regional
Policy co-ordination within the Cabinet. Jörgen Gren is from
my Cabinet. Angel Catalina Rubianes is relatively new, a year
only. I have two people from the Cabinet and two from DG Regio.
Q369 Chairman: Today we had a very
interesting session with DG Regio and Mr Ahner, and that was a
great success. We have also met compatriots of yours from two
regions in Poland who were extremely interesting on how Poland
is getting on with the Structural Funds and have given us a great
many facts. In writing our report we are struggling with various
strands. One of the most potent strands in our country and, I
guess, in several other countries in the west is all these funds
are being distributed across 268 regions, including regions in
part of the richest nations in the EU. Why, the sceptics ask,
are we doing this? Should we not be concentrating the money on
the regions in greatest need and leaving any region that is embodied
within one of the richer nations to the regional policy of that
nation on the assumption that they would actually look after their
regions? I wonder if I could ask where the Commission comes out
on that debate and how you see the reasons for having an EU-wide
regional policy.
Professor Hübner: Thank you. As you have
probably heard already we went through this type of discussion
in 2005 when we had the negotiations for 2007-13. We also had
a discussion on where we should go after the last enlargement
and the idea was presented that maybe we should limit it only
to new Member States and go to the poorest regions. Just for clarification,
we have just the two groups of the poorest regions today, the
convergence regions and the competitiveness employment objective
for the richer regions. Among the poorest regions it is not only
new Member States, about 40 per cent of the regions under the
convergence objectives are also regions in the EU-15, including
the UK, but also Spain, Greece, Germany, Italy and Portugal, and
even one in Austria. We have to understand it is not just the
poorer parts of Europe or the club of the poorer countries that
join the Union that are under this criterion of poorest regions.
Across Europe in different places here and there we have those
regions that are poorer, so this argument of dividing Europe into
two categories and for some regions having a network and framework
of European policy with priorities and a general policy framework
for only part of Europe when these regions are so dispersed across
Europe from the point of view of methodology would be a rather
challenging effort. I believe there are also other very serious
arguments. For example, if we look at the challenges which require
a type of structural policy from Europe today, they are all horizontal:
climate change, energy, globalisation, the pressures coming from
global markets. It goes across the whole of the European territory
in an asymmetric way affecting different regions depending on
their capacity and situation. With these horizontal challenges
we believe it will be difficult to justify for some territories
that we have a common response to our policy and other parts of
Europe would not have the same types of response. This argument
of global horizontal challenges which require local and regional
responses is also working towards the Europe-wide Regional Policy.
You hear arguments also, even those which are based on a solidarity
argument, that say even in the richer regions we have pockets
of very serious social or economic deprivation or insufficiency.
We see this policy not so much as in the past when Jacques Delors
thought of the Cohesion Policy but today as less of a redistribution
mechanism and more of a development policy which is mobilising
the endogenous capitals of the regions and doing it by using this
common framework which involves co-operation with exchanges of
experience through joint work and joint projects. I think this
policy brings more European integration than there would be otherwise.
If you think of this policy today we have a very strong focus
on the poorest because we have more than 80 per cent of resources
going to the poorest, both in the EU-15 and EU-12, and five per
cent for the weaker regions and 13 per cent going to the richer
regions. It is positively biased to the poorer regions but with
a small price, which is 12 or 13 per cent of the resources going
to the richer regions, we get huge value-added which is keeping
all the regions involved and allowing for co-operation and making
them all feel they are part of the European economy. The last
argument is we sometimes think of Europe as big because if you
look at the map of Europe it is a big continent, but if you look
at Eurasia or a map of the entire world we are just a tiny peninsula
attached to the rest. Today, if you want to compete with countries
like China or India, and I do not know what will happen with Africa
with the Chinese there strongly and there might be a big change
there, we have to think about the entire European territory as
a common market, one economy where we have to measure the competitiveness
of the regions against the global background, not just comparing
ourselves with our neighbours. We are a network of regions that
have to think of internationalising themselves and becoming part
of global supply networks and chains. I see it as a must that
we are altogether in this policy which is where the value-added
comes from belonging to one network and one framework of Structural
Policy. I would say for a small price we get huge value-added
in keeping those regions within it. After visits to the east of
England, Yorkshire and the Humber, when you see how much those
people do locally, for example in renewable energy or energy efficiencies,
because they have a tiny amount, ten per cent of the funds, that
they can put into the projects, they do it in a European framework
working with other regions and are thinking of having a meeting
with us next year on renewable energies that will take place in
England. Those parts of England feel they are a part of Europe
only because they belong to these policies. The value-added we
get is disproportionately high compared to the resources that
we invest in those richer regions.
Q370 Lord Woolmer of Leeds: Can I
put a proposition to you, Commissioner, and say what I think you
have just said and see if I have got it right. There are 268 regions
and the Regional and Structural Funds are something in the order
of less than half a per cent of the GDP of the Union.
Professor Hübner: Less.
Q371 Lord Woolmer of Leeds: Covering
470 million people. I put the proposition to you that if the Union
was one country, and that would send some shivers through parts
of the United Kingdom, and there were 470 million people and the
country was divided into 268 administrative areas with a lot of
strong local traditions and so on, and you had got less than half
a per cent of the income of the country to use for certain policies
which you call regional and structural, if you were designing
a policy from base zero, you would really say "How can we
really use that money targeted best" and you would be amazed
if you finished up and everybody got something. That would hardly
be targeted strategic policy, that would be far beyond strategic
policy. If you were running a business covering 470 million you
certainly would not divide it up in that kind of way. If you were
designing something afresh, not now but looking beyond, it does
seem very odd to some people that everybody gets something. If
I understood your answer, I think it was this: there is concentration,
over 80 per cent of the resources go to 70 regions which is about
25 per cent of the population, 25 per cent of the regions, five
per cent goes to encouraging regional activity and so on, and
it is only 12 per cent of funds that goes to nearly 300, therefore
the amount that those 300 are getting must be very small. In the
terms we are talking about here the average citizen thinks they
look large but they are actually very small, yet to distribute
those funds and have those discussions a lot of activity goes
on. I think your explanation was that it does two things. One
is it helps bind everybody in to feel they are part of Europe,
even though the figures are actually very, very small in relation
to public policy. Secondly, I think you said the whole emphasis
has begun to shift away from simply being redistribution dealing
with the 70 but to wider dimensions like the Lisbon Agenda, competitiveness,
and you talked about climate change, energy and so on. What is
the answer to why is it that 12 or 15 per cent of the money is
going in a very small amount of a lot of regions with all the
bureaucracy, all the administration and all the relations that
flow on from that? Is it that it is keeping everybody happy and
keeping them part of the team or is it that policy is beginning
to move gradually over time towards matters other than substantially
one of addressing the problem of consolidation and convergence
and so on?
Professor Hübner: You have touched upon
many extremely important arguments and issues. One thing I would
like to raise is the notion that cohesion has evolved over time.
In the past you just invested in different things to get cohesion
in Europe but today we have regions in Europe where no investor
will go unless you build the first decent road. My home country
is probably one of the best examples of this but there are many
regions like this. We need this traditional investment to make
regions grow faster and to catch up. Today, without investment
in what makes a regional economy competitive, which is innovation,
and there is probably no better way of getting profits and becoming
competitive than to invest in innovation, we are moving towards
a different type of investment but with the same perspective of
having the cohesion, economic and social, and also with the new
Treaty territorial cohesion hopefully, more harmonious development
with less barriers that will hamper the development in Europe.
This is one thing I think we should take into account because
that changes the understanding of how things look today and that
is why the policy has had to evolve in the global context and
the context of all the challenges and a better understanding of
what we need today for cohesion. This is one thing I would like
to say. The other thing you mentioned is we need a foreign policy
that has a share in the European budget which on the one hand
is big and, on the other hand, we know the EU budget is extremely
small. This policy will always have to have a strategic approach.
Increasingly, we are moving towards the thematic strategy that
we need in Europe to address this policy. We have already done
it for 2007-13 focusing on Lisbon, on innovation, research, technology
transfer and a different type of less direct support for companies
and more investment in public goods around the companies that
they can use. The third issue I would like to mention in this
context is that we should always remember this is a policy which
is functioning within the framework of State Aid rules, so we
are not just giving subsidies where we think somebody might need
them but there are very strict State Aid rules and we have regional
maps of State Aid and are navigating within this territory. Today,
the notion of a public good in Europe, which was traditionally
the transport networks and domination of the railway, where we
think we can bring it about is a state of the art environmental
policy and if we talk about networks, it is the energy networks.
The public good is increasingly education and research. If we
think about this policy as delivering European public good which
is needed for growth, but which also heads European value-added,
we have to move this policy towards these new categories where
we want to invest. It goes across the whole of the European Union.
The next issue is related to your doubts or comments. We see public
investment over the last ten or 15 years in Europe has been moving
downwards and we have less public investment at the national level
and in some countries a very substantial increase of public investment
at regional and local levels. We are still a small proportion
of public investment but we treat our money as seed money or as
a contribution from the EU budget to public investment with a
huge focus on the leverage function of this money. That is why
for us, for example, the private investment contribution on the
national side to the EU funds is increasingly important and we
have moved to the new financial engineering largely inspired,
as usual, by a lot of British experiences at local level. We have
now got a combination of grants and loans and the leverage function
is much, much bigger than it was in the past and I hope it will
be bigger in the future. In addition to directly investing in
what is essential today for closer cohesion, we are also shifting
the pattern of public investment in Europe. I was told by some
of the panel that we are also opening minds because people start
talking or thinking differently about what kind of investment
Europe needs. When I went to Scotland for the first time in 2005
I was at some meetings with journalists where they were saying,
"Stop talking about Lisbon, this euro-speak. We don't want
to know what Lisbon is", and then I went to a meeting with
mayors, there was an organisation of local leaders, and this was
after we started negotiations for 2007-13, and before I even opened
my mouth they started to talk about Lisbon because they had taken
it down to their level and they had ambition and a network of
university links was emerging across Scotland.
Q372 Lord Kerr of Kinlochard: Very
intelligent people up there!
Professor Hübner: Normally when you have
European policy like Lisbon, and we kept it for five years, 2000-05,
at a central level, European level, national level, we just talk
about it and nothing happens, but the moment we took it down to
the regional and local levels it started to live. That is in the
heads and minds of those who have an impact on public investment.
I lost what I wanted to say about the strategic concentration
on Lisbon. With this small amount of money which can trigger waves
of bigger money we understood that at the same time we have to
strategically focus the priorities and give everybody access to
the policy, but only to those who want to implement the priorities
that we have for the whole of Europe. I would say that we have
succeeded. If you think of the negotiations that we have had,
and my colleagues might have shared this with you, we had the
negotiations which started with many Member States and regions
without sufficient commitment on their side to innovation and
ended up with 200 billion devoted to the regional objectives.
There was something in the added value of this policy that we
needed in Europe in terms of opening minds, not only roads as
we did traditionally.
Q373 Lord Trimble: Coming on the
back of the reference to the Lisbon Agenda and focusing on things
like competitiveness and innovation, surely these are issues that
apply across the whole of Europe. What is the regional perspective?
Somewhere within the structures here there should be encouragement
for competitiveness and innovation generally, should there not?
It is not a specifically Regional Policy.
Professor Hübner: I do not think we can
have only regions or municipalities and this will be enough to
have growth and jobs and competitiveness of the European economy.
Certainly it is not enough to have a declaration at national level
that we need innovation policy and a lot of innovation, but we
must make it happen. If you think where and how innovation happens,
you need proximity of partners and if you do not have universities
willing to work with businesses, increasingly very small and medium-sized
companies, if you do not have an active mayor of a city who gets
the guys from the universities and from business and puts them
in one room, you do not have the innovation. If you do not have
a financial instrument which is usually present locally that knows
all those partners and is able to invest in this risky undertaking,
as innovation normally is, then the innovation does not happen.
For the innovation to happen we need proximity of partners. This
is happening locally or at regional level, so this involvement
of the local and regional level in innovation today is a must.
Today I think a characteristic of drivers for growth and for change
is networking. It also happens not just because governments decide
to say, "We should network" but because enterprises
or universities decide to network. This local and regional dimension
today in generating change, in generating innovation, is essential
because it is all based on mutual trust and confidence, partners
have to know each other to embark on a common undertaking. That
is why we think the growth machinery and how growth happens is
increasingly pointing to the importance of the place.
Q374 Lord Trimble: That may very
well be true in individual cases where people are innovating,
whether they have come spinning off developments from research
in universities or whatever, but that does not have any interaction
with the Commission, the Commission is not relevant to that process.
That is a personal process that depends on the individuals who
are there. With regard to innovation and competition, what you
want to do is to think in terms of incentives for that and eliminate
those things that are making you uncompetitive, like high social
costs, inflexibility in labour markets and things like that. Those
things do not have a regional dimension. They might have a national
dimension, they might have a European dimension, but they are
not really relevant to regional policy, are they?
Professor Hübner: No. I can tell you we
first saw it on such a scale in France but today it is probably
in many other countries in Europe. We have asked every region
to do it, which is the Regional Innovation Strategy. In addition
to public policies, I agree with you that there is a need to have
a framework at national level created by the legal framework and
that differs according to the countries. There are many countries
that have innovation agencies at national level that play an important
role. There are more and more regions that have established the
Regional Innovation Strategies across Europe which are based on
what makes the innovation so efficient and enables it to take
place based on regional and local partnerships between the universities,
business and financial institutions. You find this in Spain and
in many parts of the UK. Let me also say that there are examples
of innovation that are taking place only because there was seed
money, like ten per cent coming from the EU budget, and that was
why IBM did not go to Oxford or Cambridge, they went to Wales.
That was because there was the involvement of European money.
If you look into the statistics you can see how differentiated
the indicator of research and development share of GDP is, not
at national level but also at regional level. There are regions
in Germany or Austria that have eight per cent of research and
development at the regional level and regions in Bulgaria where
it is close to zero. There is a huge differentiation in terms
of research and development and innovation capacity, not at national
level but at regional level. The same is true in Finland. If you
go to countries that have good national statistics or indicators,
they are the result of extremely strong activities which are handled
regionally and designed and organised and implemented at a regional
level because the partners are there. Incentives at national level
seem to be insufficient to accelerate and generate the amounts
of innovation we need in the European Union. There are also theories
that the Americans have started, Michael Porter and many others,
who point out that innovation requires the proximity of partners
and that is placed-related.
Q375 Lord Kerr of Kinlochard: I want
to ask a two-part question which arises from what you said about
keeping the Union on the map in the older Member States and about
pockets of deprivation even in the rich Member States. Yes, it
is true, but I think the terrible problems of East London are
probably basically best dealt with by taxing more highly the citizens
in West London, and you probably see two or three sitting in front
of you now. You know Sussex very well. The problems of the North-East,
West Cumbria or the Forth Clyde Valley are probably a call on
the resources of the rich South-East of England. I find it hard
to follow the argument, unless it is actually a different argument
really, an argument about maintaining political support in older
and richer Member States for a major resource transfer to newer
and poorer Member States, which I am in favour of. If so, we should
be honest and distinguish it as a political argument, not an economic
argument. That is not saying it is a wrong argument but it is
a different kind of argument. After all, you and I were prophets
of subsidiarity, we wrote it right at the front of the best version
of the Treaty, which was the first version of the Treaty.
Professor Hübner: Absolutely.
Q376 Lord Kerr of Kinlochard: Are
you sure that your argument about pockets of deprivation and keeping
the EU on the map are consistent with subsidiarity? My second
question, and here I would be thrilled if you gave two answers,
first as a Commissioner and then as a very distinguished Polish
citizen, is do you really believe that four per cent is an objective
economically demonstrable ceiling on absorptive capacity? If so,
why did we not think of that when we invented the Cohesion Fund
in 1991 and 1992, when we were much more generous to Spain? Two
answers would be fine!
Professor Hübner: On absorption capacity,
this is a very difficult issue and we have had many discussions
and a lot of simulation studies and only when it happens can you
see whether they cope with this amount of funds. Normally when
we talk about absorption we think about administrative capacity
and will they have good quality projects, will they have some
financial management, enough administration of good quality, not
only at national but also at regional and local levels. There
are all of those aspects which are of a more technical nature.
We have also introduced the broader understanding of absorption
capacity and its impact on the macro-economic situation. With
the Structural Funds, as you say, it may be just four per cent
of the GDP but it can be up to 20 per cent of the public investment
in a country and then if it goes to a region, on a regional basis
it can be much more than four per cent depending on the redistribution.
This broad understanding of absorption capacity is important.
That is why we have always believed, and this should be the case
for the future, that the additionality principle is one of the
important principles here. We should not think of these funds
as just coming and replacing the national level but they facilitate
and trigger all sorts of changes which otherwise they could probably
wait tens of years for. Absorption has to be taken very seriously
in the future because of its impact on macro-economic stability
and it can have an impact on stresses on individual sectorial
markets, the labour market and then it triggers reforms in the
labour market because of this. Understanding of absorption capacity
is a very complex issue. I would not dare say today what the maximum
ceiling of the absorption capacity is because it is so individual
depending on the capacity of the economy. Thinking in terms of
a ceiling on the money that can come from outside, that is a must,
and that is why the State Aid rules are so important. I would
challenge your point about whether we pass the subsidiarity test
with this policy because if you take subsidiarity as it was in
our Treaty, which is the argument that justification for this
kind of action exists when the actions of Member States do not
suffice to achieve the objectives of cohesion, I would say this
is the case and especially so in the context of the new global
challenge, all those new challenges, for which I think we need
a common framework. A common framework also needs common legal
frameworks, but we combine this common framework with stronger
centralisation. We had a strategic approach in 2005 when we established
the rules and priorities at European level but then we said, "It
is up to you, ground zero, to decide what kinds of projects you
want to have to make Europe more innovative, to make Europe grow,
to create jobs and address social inclusion, climate, the environment
or other issues". We combined the strategic role of the Commission
with what I think is subsidiarity with those local and regional
level decisions on what the priorities are there. I understand
the second test for subsidiarity in this context is that what
we do generate benefits entire Europe. When we are present in
the richer regions we are triggering certain processes there and
leading them to co-operate with others and understand that when
the money goes to the poorer it very often comes back to the richer
because investment and trade flows are generated. I think we do
pass the subsidiarity test throughout this policy and the involvement
with richer regions as part of these policies within this framework
is justified. There is more and more conviction that if you want
to be really efficient in responding, hopefully in advance, to
the global challenges, although that is not always the case, you
have to give more weight to local and regional levels and those
local responses to global challenges, in my view, are very often
much more efficient than if there was only the national response.
Regions come and they like to share best practice and there are
special programmes to share best practice. You can see what excellent
projects you can have in a city or in a region to address the
demographic challenge, for example what they do for the elderly,
and others learn from that. This is a value-added that comes with
this policy. I think we need all of those local responses today.
To make it more efficient we need some co-ordination across Europe
and these local responses, which are a must to global challenges,
are very softly co-ordinated by us because we offer the same set
of rules and the same seven year Financial Perspective so those
who know best what to do and how to do it, we help them to function
within a common framework which increases the synergies and allows
us to have a stronger result at the European level. That is my
understanding. When you talk about taxes, it is a different story
to talk about taxes in the UK and what is going on on the Continent
when we negotiated, for example, the cross-border programme and
had a region in the Czech Republic with a corporate tax of probably
15 or 20 per cent and Austria with 40 per cent and had to accommodate
those differences. Taxes are probably an instrument which Europe
still does not accept the use of as an incentive, not to mention
the fact that we at the Commission have no competence on this.
Q377 Lord Kerr of Kinlochard: Would
you accept, Commissioner, that for dealing with problems inside
richer, older Member States, the balance between loan and grant
finance might be rather different, it might be tilted more heavily
towards loan finance rather than grant finance compared to newer
and poorer Member States. You spoke about financial engineering
and we also heard from Graham Meadows the other day on the possible
desirability of having more loan finance, particularly in the
richer, older Member States, and I found that rather convincing.
Professor Hübner: This is an important
change that we introduced when we started the negotiations with
the European Investment Bank and EBRD and the Council of Europe
on the urban projects to combine these grants coming from the
EU budget with the loans. We had two things in mind. One, to increase
the amount of finance available to the policy, because no matter
how much money you have the needs of modernisation are so enormous
across Europe that you need private capital and money coming from
loans. The other objective was we knew with the entry of the Bank
into the system you could also increase the efficiency and quality
of the projects and the culture of richer public sectors, which
is not always the best culture, especially on the Continent, so
we took this argument into account. Your idea is very interesting.
Today we differentiate strongly between the regions of richer
countries and poorer countries through very different co-financing
criteria. In the poorest countries they get 80/85 per cent from
the EU budget for a project and in the richer countries it is
the reverse. This is a factor which we can use. The same is true,
as you say, with the proportion of the loans and grants. That
is a very important argument. In the poorer countries we would
like to have the biggest because the culture is changing and we
would like them to move towards loan financing. That is helping
them to develop their financial sector, which is very shallow.
It is a multi-purpose exercise that is combining loans and grants.
The response has been very positive and we are surprised how many
of the regions have already embarked on this combination of loans
and grants and opening the possibility within the programmes.
Chairman: We now come, as it were, to another
of the statement of objections about the spreading of Structural
Funds through all countries. Lord Woolmer.
Q378 Lord Woolmer of Leeds: We took
evidence from a former Director General of DG Regional Policy,
Graham Meadows, and in his written evidence to us on the subject
of financial management and control he said the following to us:
that a black spot of present European Regional Cohesion Policy
is the growing administrative and financial burden being passed
on to project sponsors. These burdens earn the policy a bad reputation,
even among direct beneficiaries. That is a call which you will
recognise. Do you think he has a point? Over time is there an
issue here that does need to be addressed and how can it be addressed?
I am thinking not just of the Commission level but right down
through the Commission, Member States, regional authorities, the
applicants and so on, the whole process. Has Mr Meadows got a
point recognising the competing pressures on you, so not an instant
solution? Is there a way forward over time and in what way could
evidence and suggestions be helpful to bring about change?
Professor Hübner: There are one or two
issues here. We have been working with Graham a lot on simplification
because the costs are bigger and costs of control and for many
final beneficiaries it is a burden and a cost. This is public
money, so this is money that will always be under special scrutiny
and control. As you know, in the EU system we have the Court of
Auditors, our duties and the judicial procedure every year. There
is a shared management system which means that even though the
Commission is finally responsible for the budget, the major responsibility
for the daily functioning of the policies is with the Member States.
We get the payment claims with two signatures, one from managing
authorities and the other from the Minister of Finance usually,
and still our auditors go and we discover there are irregularities
and we undertake procedures leading to financial corrections.
The Court of Auditors agrees that certain simplification may make
the controls less painful and less costly if we do it. How much
we can go with further simplification we will have to see, but
we need the support of the Member States. Usually, the Commission
proposes something but then to get agreement among 27 Member States
and the Parliament, which is usually very strongly divided on
those issues, we get less than we want to achieve. It is very
difficult. Certainly simplification of the policy is the direction
we want to go in. I do not want to enter into details but we did
some changes for the Social Fund when there were some flat rates
on costs. We have the real cost approach which means checking
everything, every light in the room and all these things, which
is a nightmare, but that is the approach that comes from our financial
system. There is a whole area here still to consider. My view
would be that the Commission should be doing more a kind of performance
assessment of the policy. We have discussed over the last few
years that some financial management is one area where we could
increase the role of the Member States with a Contract of Confidence
or national declaration and whatever instruments we could envisage
for the future. The Commission could probably do more on the performance
and contribution of the policy to growth and real change in the
economy. We have to work on this area and this is absolutely the
direction for the future that is needed. The second thing related
to this, which is very painful for me each time I go to a country
that has a tiny allocation of one billion and you have a country
with an allocation of 60 billion and they have the same procedures,
is it is impossible for anybody who is using this support to understand
and it is very difficult for us. We would like to change it. That
is one of the most difficult issues, how you can have different
rules depending on the size, but we have to think of how we can
move on this. What we have done already for 2007-13, which was
with Graham Meadows, is to introduce changes to the control system
and put more responsibility on ex-ante control and the Member
States which would free up on some of the policies in the Commission
and more could be done on performance. This is an area where much
is happening but much still has to be done. I have already mentioned
the Contract of Confidence and Wales was the first to sign that
with us two years ago. I am sure you all know about the Contract
of Confidence where we do a thorough check of the system and the
capacity and we give them some responsibility and that means less
audits from the Commission.
Chairman: May I trespass on your time just for
one final question which I will ask Lord Trimble to put.
Q379 Lord Trimble: This is moving
on to something quite different, namely the current consultation
on the future of Cohesion Policy. Are there any conclusions emerging
from that process at the moment?
Professor Hübner: We started these consultations
in September last year. First we presented a Cohesion Report which
more or less shows what is going on in Europe. We are also working
on a report showing regional Europe in 2020 so we know more or
less what kind of situation we might have with regard to challenges
towards the end of the next Financial Perspective we should address
with the policies, which we will complete by the end of this year.
This work has been done through the Fourth Cohesion Report. We
opened the consultation and we have received more than 100 contributions
of very different natures, some very complex presentations by
some Member States and regions but also partners, the business
community, academic community, including NGOs and individual citizens.
We are now doing the analysis which will be thoroughly presented
in a Fifth Interim Report which will be published in June this
year. What we see now is—I am sorry, it may not sound modest
but one should not be too modest when presenting somebody's views—there
is overwhelming support for the Cohesion Policy for the future,
for the special focus on the poorest, but no doubt across Europe
there is around 60 per cent saying it should be for all the regions
across the European Union with a specific place for the poorest
regions. We have support for the need of this policy to cope with
all the major challenges which are the globalisation pressures,
the demography. This opening of the policy to these new challenges
is supported. Also we have very clear support for the role of
local and regional levels, which is very much in line with the
new Treaty where we have subsidiarity extended to local and regional
levels for the first time, for the partnership principle, which
is consulting with all the partners on the ground, and for simplification,
mostly from the Brits who requested that we should work more on
the simplification of the administrative procedures. There is
also something I have not mentioned so far which is a strong request
to keep the commitment of this policy to the integrated approach.
One of the values of the Regional Policy is you can have an integrated
approach to development so you are not sectorial, which very often
does not solve the problems. The approach is that you cannot solve
the congestion problem in a city if you do not solve the transport
problem or the waste treatment. This integrated approach at a
territorial level is supported. There is a concern that we should
aim at further full use of synergies between policies and this
is what we have been trying to do between research and Regional
Policy over the last two years so that these synergies between
policies can be used. We also did a Eurobarometer in January for
the first time in the history of this policy, the last time it
was in 1991, and it was a representative sample of citizens, but
basically we got the same results and views. Colleagues tell me
that 65 per cent of British citizens are in favour of Regional
Policy for all EU regions, and this is the second highest result
among Member States.
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