Irish Regions Office Website

January 18, 2010

New Commissioner outlines his vision of Regional Policy

New Commissioner-designate Johannes Hahn has declared his support for an EU Regional Policy covering the entire territory of the Union. In his 14 January hearing in front of the European Parliament Committee on Regional Development, the former Austrian Minister acknowledged that the intervention of Cohesion Policy should not be limited only to the poorest areas but should be spread more widely as a means of realising the economic development potential of all parts of the Union.

Without making any concrete commitments, Hahn also announced his intention to maintain regional policy's claim on approximately one third of the EU budget despite clamours to reallocate much of this resource elsewhere. Doubtless mindful of the increasing profile of the knowledge economy, he cited the need to bring regional policy goals more closely into line with the overarching 'EU 2020' strategy than was the case with the Lisbon strategy it replaces. This will clearly entail channeling a greater proportion of regional funds into innovation, research and education activities. This statement of intent comes as national media reports has been reporting the success of Irish organisations (mainly Higher Education Institutes and companies) in winning approximately EUR1 million per week in EU research & development funding from the Seventh Framework Programme. While this performance is impressive, it is worth considering that this figure continues to be bettered by Ireland's take from its two regional (Competitiveness & Employment) and one national (Human Capital) Structural Funds which are providing an average of over EUR2 million per week to Ireland right throughout the 2007-2013 period. Additionally, as opposed to the highly competitive bidding that surrounds FP7 funding (Irish applications enjoy a one-in-four success rate), the sums negotiated under the Structural Funds are guaranteed to the state and are channeled towards defined priorities in order to maximise their effect.

Hahn also gave particular emphasis to the need to develop proactive urban policies tailored at improving the contribution of European cities towards regional development goals. This may point the way towards future EU programmes specifically for cities. He also advocated improvements in urban environment policy which is expected to mean a programming emphasis on energy efficient housing. The need to adopt an integrated approach to the planning and delivery of regional policy was another issue to catch the Commissioner’s attention and he underlined that this should involve developing a model of shared management and financial control between national and regional authorities.

Summary of hearing

Posted by iroronan at January 18, 2010 10:24 AM