Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-26-Speech-2-364"
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"en.20060926.29.2-364"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with today’s debate and tomorrow’s vote, Parliament is laying the keystone of two-and-a-half years’ work on preparing the legislative package on cohesion policy for the years 2007–2013. This is a cohesion policy that is to function with 25 – or 27 – Member States for the first time, the new Member States all being beneficiaries of the Cohesion Fund and set to draw great benefit from the future cohesion and structural policies. We should like tomorrow’s vote to clear the way for the conclusion, submission and approval by the Commission of the operational programmes in the regions, so as to ensure an early start to the projects in the less-favoured regions of the EU next year.
Looking back, I should like to express my most sincere thanks for the cooperation I have received on the report on the strategic guidelines. The Commission proposal is good; it was a joint effort – with the Commission and the Council, that is – and I should like to mention explicitly here that we had a great deal of direct contact with the regions. The visits I was able to make to Lisbon, Madrid, Bratislava, Prague, Stockholm and Helsinki as rapporteur contributed considerably to the quality of the report that was subsequently adopted jointly in committee and plenary.
I am delighted that the additional priorities Parliament wanted to introduce for the guidelines have indeed been largely reflected in the document on which the Council decided in August.
Probably the most important point is the clear statement that we want the EU to develop in a sustainable way, that we have more in view than short-term economic objectives, but instead are striving for sustainable improvements, including in living and working conditions, particularly in the less-favoured and underdeveloped regions of the EU. That is why it was so important to us that access to cohesion funding be free from discrimination. The final document now present spells out once more that disabled and elderly people and those with a migrant background have exactly the same access to funding as everyone else. This is an important signal to the public in the regions.
We have attached importance to emphasising that the EU is striving to create not just any jobs, but better-quality, sustainable jobs. This is closely linked to an improvement in training and in the opportunities for setting up research organisations, and also to the opportunity of bringing the results produced by these research organisations to small and medium-sized enterprises more quickly and to a greater extent. We have anchored all of this even more strongly in the strategic guidelines.
Very important to us – after a long, detailed debate – is the field of support for towns, cities and urban areas, as it is there that 80% of the European population lives. For this reason, we must concentrate resources on this field, not only on job creation, but also, for example, on the development of transport infrastructure or the improvement of the environmental situation in towns and cities.
We have emphasised one point in particular, and that is the territorial cooperation that is more important than ever in an enlarged EU to enable us to learn from one another and develop projects together. Last week, a working-group visit to Hungary gave me the first opportunity to see for myself the kind of strategically intelligent visions and ideas that are being generated in the new Member States, too. Perhaps some of the regions that have been receiving EU cohesion funding for years could take a leaf out of the new Member States’ book. For this we need to promote territorial cooperation further, however.
A further point – about which I shall speak particularly in my role as coordinator of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament – concerns the promotion of equal opportunities in the EU, particularly for women and young people. In the new aid period, the Community should further draw on the success it has achieved with EQUAL and continue to operate the networks. This has also been incorporated into the guidelines. On the whole, we, Parliament, can count the negotiation results as a great success, not only for Parliament, but also for the public.
No success or compromise can survive without a ‘but’. There is of course a ‘but’ with these guidelines, too. Parliament has attached great importance to enhancing cooperation with the social partners and civil society, and this has made its way into the guidelines, in the report finally adopted by the Council, but unfortunately only in significantly watered-down form. We, Parliament, shall be at pains to speak up again on the occasion of the mid-term review of the structural support period and revise these guidelines together. This will relate to the cooperation, and we shall also examine very carefully whether earmarking was really a good idea on the part of the Council, or whether it only serves to increase bureaucracy for those involved. If this is the case, we shall certainly press for its abolition, as Parliament has a responsibility and duty towards the public, a duty it intends to fulfil."@en1
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