The Slovenian Presidency held a two-days conference on the future of cohesion policies after 2013 with representatives of all members States, in which CECODHAS (Social Platform member) had the opportunity to express their concersn and to propose a better integration of the Structural funds to finance local development plans for deprived areas.

All Member States were invited by the Presidency to answer basic questions such as: do you want a renationalisation of cohesion Funds to which they answered almost unanimously that cohesion policies at EU level has been a key to the development of the EU and should stay so.

The Commission presented the results of the consultation and the recent Eurobarometers, both going in the same direction of a strong request to focus the Cohesion policies not on the Growth and job agenda but on sustainable development and on climate change in particular. The message was to go from the restricted Lisbon agenda back to the Goteborg agenda.

Experts from different universities were asked to prepare the debate but their contributions were not so useful (even very much criticized by the representative of the CESE).

A strong message from the Member states was to find a new solution for the financial management of the Funds; the Commission having the full responsibility of the management of the Funds when a lot of decisions have been transferred at national and local level makes the system inefficient.

In particular new Member States heavily criticized the administrative burden as being a main obstacle for the success of the Funds.

Further steps:

The Parliament is preparing two initiative reports, from MEP Beaupuy and governance and from MEP Krell on best practices in cohesion policies fro the autumn.

Then the French representative announced that the presidency will propose indicators to implement and follow-up the Leipzig Charte, they also plan an evaluation of the Jessica programme of the BEI, they would like to propose a “label” for European sustainable development capital.

They will organise another forum on the future of cohesion policies in Paris the 30 and 31 October; a forum of cities after the Urbact conference in Montpellier on the 27,28 November and a Ministerial meeting on territories and housing on the 26 and 27 November.

The Slovenian Presidency has been open to NGOs statement and gave the opportunity to CECODHAS to For the presentation made during the conference and the full report: Slovenian presidency website http://www.svlr.gov.si/en/eu_presidency/events/conference_on_the_future_of_cohesion_policy/