A3-0279/93

Resolution on the future of Community initiatives under the Structural Funds

The European Parliament,

-having regard to the Commission communication 'The future of Community initiatives under the Structural Funds' (COM(93)0282 - C3-0299/93),

-having regard to the Treaty on European Union, in particular Articles 130a and 130c thereof,

-having regard to the conclusions of the Edinburgh European Council,

-having regard to the revised regulations on the Structural Funds of 20 July 1993 that lay down criteria for the initiatives,

-having regard to the Commission's request for Parliament's views on the future of the Community initiatives,

-having regard to the report by the Committee on Regional Policy, Regional Planning and Relations with Regional and Local Authorities and the opinions of the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and the Working Environment (A3-0279/93),

A.having regard to the major cyclical and structural crisis and the rise of unemployment throughout the Community,

B.having regard to the completion of the internal market and to the competitive effects that this has had on certain sectors of the economy,

1.Points out that, despite the beneficial effects of Community regional policy during the period covered by the 1989-93 programme, there has been no substantial change in the economic disparities between the most developed and the most backward regions of the Community and that this is partly caused by major structural deficiencies in the latter regions;

2.Recalls, in this connection, that the Commission itself has indicated that, in order to bring about a radical reduction in disparities between the regions of the Community, 0.97% of GDP should be set aside for Community regional policy instead of the current 0.43%: failing this, the principle of concentration will be an essential factor in all the instruments of the Structural Funds;

3.Stresses the difficulties that face industries and regions that are called on to respond rapidly to the new conditions brought about by a frontier-free European trading system without national protective measures, which exacerbate social and regional disparities, contrary to the objective of economic and social cohesion;

4.Stresses that the initiatives, conceived as instruments for achieving specific goals of particular interest for the Community or for overcoming structural deficiencies from a Community point of view, have proven their effectiveness because they are better targeted and their objectives more precisely defined than are general structural policies, and could be an instrument to avoid renationalization of a sizeable proportion of the budget;

5.Insists that existing initiatives such as NOW, KONVER, RESIDER and RECHAR, which have proved to be efficient but have not yet achieved their final objectives, should be maintained and that the budgetary authority should enter sufficient appropriations for the financing of these programmes;

6.Calls on the Commission to justify any abandonment of an existing Community initiative by means of a report giving an assessment thereof;

7.Reiterates that Community initiatives should be European in nature, transcending purely national interests, and that they should not become indirect instruments of redistribution of financial resources to the Member States;

8.Seeks to enhance the transparency of Community initiatives by adopting, during the annual budgetary procedure, an appropriate budgetary nomenclature which will permit both

-greater flexibility in the management of resources and

-democratic control by the European Parliament which would retain the initiative it had during implementation of the PERIFRA and KONVER programmes;

9.Welcomes the Commission's proposals and is satisfied that 9% of the resources allocated to structural policies are to be earmarked during each budgetary procedure for initiatives, which must have a European dimension; insists that initiatives should not alter the overall financial target for Objective 1 regions (70%); considers that the financial balance between themes and the type of actions proposed should facilitate the achievement of this objective; regards the 9% as a minimum and feels 15% would have been preferable;

10.Asks the Commission to ensure that, when new Community initiatives are brought into being and decisions are taken on renewing existing initiatives, particular account is taken of the real problems facing the neediest regions;

11.Stresses that transnational and inter-regional cooperation, particularly between maritime regions, should be an important element of the new Community initiatives;

12.Underlines the importance of drawing on resources from all financial instruments to widen the possibilities for comprehensive initiatives pursuing more than one sectoral policy or goal and innovative measures; considers that successful implementation will require thorough coordination;

13.Notes that the Community initiatives are uniquely flexible in that they allow for intervention outside assisted areas to a limited extent, a particularly important element in cross-border cooperation; in all other cases, areas outside Objective 1, 2 and 5b should be selected according to very strict criteria;

14.Stresses the role of catalyst which Community initiatives are called on to play with regard to inter-regional cooperation, in particular owing to the existence of problems which are common to more than one region and the added value which may result from exchanges of experience at Community level, particularly in relation to management of the environment and the development of inter-regional transport;

15.Agrees that a significant share of the resources be set aside for a reserve; believes in the light of past experience that the figure of 25% of the budget should be a minimum target; the PERIFRA and KONVER programmes illustrate that it is necessary to have a reserve to respond to sudden and unforseen events with wide economic and social implications; recalls that the utilization of this reserve is subject to budgetary rules which the Commission is obliged to comply with and to its commitment to take into account the opinion of the European Parliament before adopting a definitive text;

16.Points out, further, that Community initiatives, like the Structural Funds as a whole, should be subjected to:

-checks as regards efficiency,

-checks to combat fraud, to be coordinated by the Unit on Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF),

-an environmental impact assessment, if so required, in line with Community legislation;

17.Warns against initiatives becoming permanent programmes that rely on financial assistance from the Community; believes that the self-sustainability of a project at the end of the programme period should be a criterion for granting aid;

18.Agrees that the number of initiatives should be reduced in accordance with the principle of concentration and considers that better management and implementation procedures should be developed, namely:

(a)the simplification of procedures, recognizing the specific requirements of transnational and inter-regional cooperation which must be promoted,

(b)a more extensive use of global grants with payments made directly to a decentralised intermediary responsible for implementation at regional, local or transnational level,

(c)the drawing up by the Member States of programmes in keeping with the orientation of the new generation of initiatives on the basis of an evaluation of the practical implementation of the present initiatives;

19.Insists that regional and local authorities and the social partners in particular be closely involved in formulating, implementing and evaluating initiatives in keeping with the partnership principle and in order to draw on their special knowledge of this type of action;

20.Considers that, in order to be able better to respond to, or indeed anticipate, industrial change, the Commission must have information and analysis mechanisms which offer greater accuracy; suggests, to this end, that the Commission should set up a high-level consultative committee composed of representatives of employers and workers at national, regional and local levels;

21.Considers on the theme "Cross-border cooperation" that:

(a)INTERREG should be extended to maritime borders, for countries without internal borders with other Member States as well as for those with internal borders,

(b)as new possibilities exist for genuine cross-border cooperation between the EC and PHARE countries, enough resources should be made available in the special budget heading for this purpose,

(c)INTERREG should also cover, to a limited extent, inter-regional cooperation between Community regions aimed at creating networks through which affluent regions can transfer experience and know-how to less developed regions, or reinforcing traditional and intense relations between regions which must be maintained and developed despite changes in commercial flows brought about by a disruption in existing traffic channels;

22.Agrees with the Commission that cooperation is the central element of the "Rural development" programme, but points out there is also a need for developing innovative and demonstration activities which, without damaging the rural environment, can sustain rural employment and avoid depopulation (e.g use of agricultural residues and alternative non-food productive use of lands and encouragement of research in the agri-foodstuffs sector and its commercial application);

23.Calls for the innovative rural development programmes designed to alleviate rural job losses and the increased risk of depopulation, which are exemplary as regards the creation of non-agricultural jobs and environmental concerns and which have been put forward and implemented jointly by a group of local and regional authorities and/or socio-economic partners, to be taken into account, even if they have a wider scope and cover larger areas than those under LEADER I;

24.Considers, likewise, as part of an overview, that rural development measures should cover both areas which depend on agriculture and those which depend on fisheries;

25.Agrees with the Commission's proposal on the "Outermost regions", viewed as a priority objective by the European Council in Edinburgh, and stresses that, in addition to the island factor, the need for specific measures on the part of the Community is determined by the their distance from the European mainland;

26.Considers that the environment should be one of the priorities for the Community initiatives in order to ensure that the regions concerned have the basis for sustainable development by promoting respect for and the conservation and best possible use of natural resources and the implementation of the Community environment policy; calls on the Commission, therefore, to ensure the continuity of the ENVIREG initiative, with at least the same funding as in the past;

27.Agrees with a single framework for human resources covering a series of problems and considers that:

(a)Community initiatives, like Community regional policy as a whole, must be directed at the key objective of strengthening the Community's economic and social cohesion and reducing disparities between the various regions and the extent to which the less favoured regions are lagging behind,

(b)the partnership must be respected throughout,

(c)particular attention must be paid to the population of urban areas with problems of social and economic marginalization,

(d)the full integration of women into the world of work must be encouraged,

(e)specific measures are necessary in the fisheries sector;

28.Stresses the need to ensure the financial autonomy of the guidelines adopted under the above-mentioned framework initiative;

29.Considers that the proposed measures should be grouped together so as to increase the impact of growth on employment levels, enable the current labour force to be adapted to industrial change and channel research and innovation into a single guideline aimed at combating and preventing unemployment; believes that such an initiative would help to ensure the flexibility of action needed to respond to the different characteristics of national, regional and local employment situations;

30.Supports the Commission's view that Community initiatives should build not only on previous human resource initiatives (EUROFORM, NOW and HORIZON) but also on EC vocational training programmes, thus ensuring that these two Community instruments are linked and work together effectively;

31.Agrees that "industrial change" should cover:

(a)projects on the economic and social consequences of crises in regions with traditional industries (RETEX, KONVER, RECHAR, RENAVAL, RESIDER etc.), taking into account when determining the eligible areas not only the number of jobs lost but also the unemployment rate, the economic dependency on the industry affected and the degree of geographical isolation or peripherality;

(b)promotion of actions anticipating industrial change in modern high performing sectors, but warns of the danger of distortion of competition when aid is directed to non-eligible regions,

(c)the encouragement of actions and the opening up of lines of credit with a view to enabling regional small and medium-sized undertakings to invest in job-creating sectors, in particular by means of interest rate subsidies,

(d)difficulties in industries and regions called on to respond rapidly to the new conditions of a frontier-free European trading system and those affected by developments in Central and Eastern Europe; this concerns Objective 1 regions in particular so that their industry, especially their small and medium-sized undertakings, can be in a position to face up to the challenge of the adjustments required by the completion of the single market,

(e)a special action in Objective 1 regions linked to the challenges of the single market integrating elements of STRIDE, TELEMATIQUE and PRISMA among others;

(f) the shift to drastically less-polluting production processes;

32.Considers that areas affected by the reduction in fishing activity and by Community policy, taking particular account of the problems facing small-scale fishing, require the application of a specific Community initiative which will help mitigate the difficulties being experienced by the sector in these areas;

33.Regards the forthcoming reform of the EC vocational training programmes as a good opportunity to achieve better coordination between these and Community initiatives in the field of human resources;

34.Insists that the work carried out under EUROFORM, NOW and HORIZON should be continued in a new Community initiative 'Employment and the development of human resources';

35.Stresses that new Community initiatives concerning employment and the development of human resources and the management of industrial change must be adequately financed;

36.Believes that, apart from the measures envisaged under the 'Employment and the development of human resources' heading, which are aimed at countering the high levels of unemployment and social exclusion generally, there is a need for a specific integrated urban development programme aimed at those parts of the Community's major urban areas where unemployment, and particularly long-term unemployment, is abnormally high; the object of such an initiative would be to stimulate local economic development by facilitating the emergence and harnessing the efforts of the local actors whose experience, expertise and commitment are essential to the regeneration of neglected and run-down areas and to provide ready access to the type of services and systems necessary to support local entrepreneurial activity;

37.Considers it essential that, both at Community and Member State level, joint financing arrangements for businesses be coordinated as closely as possible with vocational training measures for workers under Objective 4;

38.Emphasises the Commission's commitment to take into consideration Parliament's opinion on each initiative before its adoption;

39.Instructs its President to forward this resolution and the report of its committee to the Commission, the Council and the Committee of the Regions.