Local and Regional Authorities held a high level debate on Cohesion implementation with Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms and Lilyana Pavlova, Vice-President of the EIB.
Emil Boc, Mayor of Cluj-Napoca said that in addition to the traditional concept of economic, social and territorial cohesion, modern times require Europe to embrace Digital cohesion as an essential, additional dimension. "Digital cohesion is indispensable for the modernisation our cities and for the creation of the jobs of today and tomorrow." Boc also outlined that managing authorities are overloaded with work trying to cope with the timely overlap of EU funding programmes and called for all available tools to be explored to promote capacity building for managing authorities so as to improve the interplay and increase the take-up of the EU funds.
Commissioner Ferreira referred to Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla opinion on 'A long-term vision for the EU's rural area's saying that this was also vital for cohesion policy. She added that local and regional authorities are key partners for the implementation of the policy and that cohesion was key for recovery and to fulfil the twin transition without creating discrepancies between between urban and rural regions.
Jose Bolieiro, President of the Regional Government of Azores said that for outermost Regions of the European Union, such as the Azores, Cohesion Policy and its Structural and Investment Funds play a decisive role. He said that data on the archipelago and below average results demonstrate the need to strengthen social cohesion. Bolieiro referred to the importance of tourism to the local economy which has been hugely impacted by the pandemic, and to the significant cost of accessibility in the Region, which has a great impact on trade and, therefore, on competitiveness. He added that the region is counting on the European recognition of the geostrategic value of the Azores.
Pavel Gudzherov from the Rakovski Municipality called for the principle of partnership to be respected when setting priorities as this is key to achieve results by 2027. He said "We must not allow the new programming period to exacerbate imbalances and the uneven distribution of public investment. I say this because all too often we are in the role of actors implementing the decisions taken from higher levels." Gudzherov also appealed to apply the 100% co-financing rate under the investment initiative to tackle the impacts of the pandemic.
Mariusz Frankowski, Councillor of the capital city of Warsaw said that business investments play a key role in economic recovery. In this regard he called for additional Cohesion Policy funds for the Warsaw Capital Region to support development of Mazovia region and Poland as well as to drive forward initiatives linked to the European Green Deal, digitalization, research and development.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBoEUbLW1CU