Every three years, the Commission publishes its Cohesion Report; a report which assesses the current state-of-play of the EU's economic, social, and territorial cohesion, and shows its role as a driver for regional development. The 9th Report on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion was published on 27 March 2024. For busy readers, we've put together the 5 key take-aways of particular interest to the Interreg community:
- Cohesion Policy has successfully contributed to the harmonisation of economic and social standards (“convergence”) between Member States in the past 20 years. However, the picture at regional level within the countries is more nuanced, with increasing disparities, notably between large metropolitan areas and other areas. The uneven distribution of growth drivers leads more developed regions to perform better in terms of innovation and competitiveness, quality of public governance and administration, and educational qualifications.
- Under the 2021-2027 programmes, 70% of both the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund Plus are allocated to less developed regions. While maintaining the focus on these regions, attention should also be paid to tackling problems with a proactive approach before they become ingrained and helping regions caught in development traps.
- Cohesion Policy, especially through Interreg programmes, has helped to support interregional collaboration through cross-border and transnational cooperation. These foster innovation, development, and better governance. There is nonetheless room for strengthening regional cooperation at different levels – notably in delivering common public goods across borders. Territorial imbalances could be mitigated by a more polycentric development model: building on small and medium-sized cities and promoting accessibility of public services in areas far from large urban centres. Regional cooperation could be strengthened by building the capacity of relevant authorities and stakeholders.
- While it was crucial for Cohesion Policy to contribute to the EU’s response to the socio-economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic and of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, its main focus must remain on the achievement of long-term structural objectives.
Economic resilience can only be achieved through long term investments, notably in the diversification of regional economies, building adaptability to technological and demographic change and upskilling the labour force. - Delays in programming and implementation of Cohesion Policy suggest that the delivery mode of the policy can be improved. This can be done notably by ensuring further simplification for administrations and beneficiaries.
The full report, a factsheet with key facts and figures on Cohesion Policy in a nutshell and further documents are available on the website of the European Commission.
You can further tune into the recordings of the 9th Cohesion Forum, held on 11-12 April 2024, where the findings of the report were thoroughly discussed by EU institutions, national, regional and local authorities from EU Member States, social and economic partners, NGOs and academia.
The publication of the 9th Cohesion Report coincides with a significant period of strategic reflections about the future of Cohesion Policy. Last year, we wrote about the group of high-level specialists that was established in early 2023. Their final report, which includes conclusions and recommendations, was published in February 2024 and is available on the EU Commission website.
As the reflections continue, the Commission has begun a consultation process with Interreg programmes.
The Interreg North-West Europe Programme will contribute to this initiative by engaging in a stakeholder consultation process from June 2024 till the end of the year. Among other milestones in this NWE consultation process:
- An online stakeholder survey will be launched before the summer and will be open until September 2024.
- The NWE Annual Event - Ready, get set, cooperate! in Dublin on 5-6 November 2024 will present the first results of the survey and be another important moment to collect additional input on how to shape the future of Interreg NWE.
All these inputs from Interreg NWE key stakeholders will feed into a report to be submitted to the European Commission by the end of 2024, and will contribute to discussions on Interreg and its role within Cohesion Policy post-2027.