In Europe, calls for greater cohesion

Four European Union commissioners have written to the president of the European Commission proposing that a number of EU funds be brought under a single "strategic framework", Regeneration & Renewal learned this week.

What the implications for regeneration practitioners are won't be known for sure until November, when the proposals are formally announced. But R&R talked to some experts in the field to find out more about the proposals in the meantime.

The letter - signed by Commissioners László Andor (Employment and Social Affairs), Dacian Cioloş (Agriculture), Maria Damanaki (Fisheries) and Johannes Hahn (Regional Policy) - refers to the following EU funds, all of which have a regeneration focus:

• the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) - which the regional development agencies (RDAs) currently have a hand in administering
• European Social Fund (ESF),
• Cohesion Fund (which doesn't apply to the UK)
• European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (Eafrd)
  
• and the European Fisheries Fund (EFF)
  

The funds currently have separate strategic guidelines governing how they are administered and on what types of projects they are spent. The letter proposes drawing up a common set of guidelines for all of them - a move it claims would "reduce administrative costs, help limit the fragmentation of the different [funds] and allow better prioritisation of EU funding". Such a reform of EU structural funding would also "set the example for a more coordinated approach at national, regional and local level", the letter said.

A source at the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), the association of European local and regional authorities, who asked not to be named, stressed that the proposed changes would be to the "general top-level procedures and formalities" governing the funds, rather than to the funds themselves.

For example, the five funds would not be merged into one, the source said, but would be grouped under the same set of EU priorities, potentially allowing for greater flexibility in how each of them are spent, it said.

The proposals have been welcomed by those in local and regional government who have been calling for a simplification of EU funding structures.

'We strongly welcome the proposals.'
Dominic Rowles, Local Government Association

Frederic Vallier, CEMR secretary-general, said: "CEMR has been hoping for such a proposal for years as it would enable a more efficient local and regional development. In the past, local and regional authorities have had problems with achieving coherence with their projects and with addressing social, environmental and economic problems efficiently and in an integrated way. These difficulties are largely due to the fragmentation of EU funding programmes."

And last October, R&R deputy editor Jamie Carpenter reported from the EU's annual cities and regions conference in Brussels that speakers from the EC's directorate general for regional policy claimed that the current process is too complex and was in need of reform.

The Local Government Association (LGA) is another organisation that has campaigned on the subject. Its EU policy and public affairs coordinator, Dominic Rowles, who is based in Brussels, said: "We strongly welcome the proposals outlined in the letter - provided there is no reduction in the overall amount of funding available."

He said that he thought that the main impact of the proposals - should they come into effect - would be to help join up the different departments within the EU that are currently designing and overseeing different EU funding streams in different ways.

He said: "This 'culture change' towards having a common approach to the funds at a strategic level could hopefully trickle down to the operational level so that national authorities could increasingly simplify and join up the processes and procedures associated with each fund. This may help to cut down on all the administration and audit requirements required for each separate fund - potentially saving time and money."

Ton van Lierop, a spokesman for commissioner Hahn, said more details would be announced in November.

So, watch this space. In the meantime, we welcome comment from readers on what a more streamlined "strategic framework" should look like - and what impact it could have on regeneration projects.