Speech from Justin Amiot on behalf of President Jean-Yves Le Drian Tulcea, Friday 24 May 2013

Transcription

1 Speech from Justin Amiot on behalf of President Jean-Yves Le Drian Tulcea, Friday 24 May 2013 Mister President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends of the CPMR, First of all, I am fully aware that I m not really the one you really wish to hear a speech from. I was dispatched today here in Tulcea on the direct request from President Le Drian as Deputy Head of his cabinet in Brittany and Special Advisor on European affairs. President Le Drian asked me to present you his apologies for not being able to be here today. As you might already know, Mister Le Drian is not only the President of the CPMR, but has also been for the past year Minister of Defense in the French Government. Today, the President of the French Republic, Mister François Hollande, was to present to the highest French military officials the new strategic guidelines for defense for the years to come. This crucial document is the result of a one year work from Mister Le Drian and his team at the Ministry. Of course, I m sure you will understand it was not imaginable for him not to be present by the President s side on this occasion. This is why he will sadly not be able to enjoy the magnificent view on the Danube curves today nor the hospitality of Tulcea County and that of President Teodorescu. And this is also why you will hear this speech from me instead of him. Once again, all apologies. I would like to pass on the personal gratitude of President Le Drian to President Teodorescu, who is also Vice-President of the CPMR, for hosting this important event. His leadership within the CPMR to focus attention on matters of importance to Balkan an Black Sea Regions has been invaluable. I would also like to emphasize the presence of two Regions from Moldova today. Obviously, they are more than welcome to join the CPMR, should they wish to do so. I also noticed the presence of President Constantinescu from the neighbour Region of Constanta. This clearly

2 shows involvement at the highest level from Romanian Regions. Last but not least, I would like to thank the President of the Balkan and Black Sea Commission for being present today. President Le Drian is even more sorry for not being able to come since the Balkan and Black Sea Commission is so important in his eyes for the future of Europe and of CPMR. The Conference of the Peripheral Maritime Regions CPMR is a network of 160 Regions throughout Europe that aims at defending the peculiarities and the specific needs of peripheral and/or maritime regions, such as the one welcoming us today, towards the European institutions. When you work at the core of the European Union, in Brussels or Francfurt for example, it s natural to see Europe as a whole but at the same time to forget a little about its diversity. It s particularly easy to neglect the most remote territories, after all, they re so far away, aren t they? CPMR was precisely created 40 years ago to regularly remind the European institutions that these territories matter, just as much and sometimes even more than the demographic and economic core of the continent. This objective is translated into the very structure of the CPMR s governance. We are organised in 6 geographical commissions in order to better be able to take into account local realities and synergies. The Balkan and Black Sea Commission is one of the 6, and probably the one where prospects of development and cooperation are highest. This is why I told you earlier that this commission is so important in President Le Drian s eyes. Though he evidently does not have enough time to closely monitor the work conducted within each commission in the CPMR, the one he focuses more time on is definitely de Balkan and Black Sea Commission. Just remember his presence two years ago in Varna. The seminar taking place today is a clear sign that there is something happening in this area, something that goes across borders, and something that holds great promises for the future. Before coming to the main topic of macro regional strategies, I would like to give you a short update on the situation of the negotiations on cohesion policy currently, taking place in Brussels. We have worked hard to defend the point of view of peripheral and maritime regions before and during the negotiations. President Le Drian even published two open letters to clearly state our views. Now that we re approaching the end of the discussions, there are things we re quite happy about, and things we re not so happy about.

3 First of all, and we have to thank the work of the CPMR team for this, some of the concepts we have pushed might very well appear in the final regulations. The architecture of cohesion policy, with the creation of an intermediate category of regions, the possibility to directly involve regional authorities to the partnership agreement and the operational programmes, the option for a revision of the policy in 2016 in light of more recent economic statistics, the specific conditions applied to outermost regions, all these elements, among others, have been strongly pushed by the CPMR and would probably not have been discussed at all if not for our contribution. But the negotiations are not over yet, thanks to the treaty of Lisbon and codecision. As a consequence, the balance of power between the European institutions is slowly shifting toward the European Parliament on many topics, in particular cohesion policy, and even the multiannual financial framework. This is something the CPMR welcomes, and at the same time has to take into account in its daily activities. We clearly intensified our efforts to convince MEPs. As an example, I will mention the recent meeting of Mister Le Drian with MEP Lamassoure, President of the budget commission. The point we re particularly keen on defending is the budget for territorial cooperation which has been decreased by 25% in the last proposals. We clearly cannot accept this and I think this seminar is a good place to make that statement again. We are counting on MEP s, who already showed their attachment to territorial cooperation, to help us push this important point in the trilogs. A short word on transports that might be of interest for you: we still think that the maritime dimension is not strong enough in the trans European transport network. We will have the opportunity to discuss it further at our political bureau in June with the European coordinator for the motorways of the seas, Luis Valente de Oliveira, who happens to be a former president of the CPMR. On a more specific note, we are currently working on dealing with the consequences of the sulphur directive for sea passenger transport. A seminar took place in Dunkerque in France one month ago to assess the European tools available to overcome this challenge. I certainly don t need to remind you that the Black Sea will be affected in 2020, and the Balkan and Baltic Sea commission might play a role in the coordination at the macroregional level on this important topic.

4 That leads us to the topic of the day: macro-regions. As I already reminded you, the CPMR is already organised as macro-regions with its six geographic commissions. We ve been advocating for years for such a bottom-up strategic approach, and our Baltic Sea commission was instrumental in setting up a Baltic strategy that is now used as a model - or so I believe - by the European commission in dealing with macro-regions. Similarly, an Atlantic strategy is now born after intensive work from our Atlantic Arc commission, and our member regions in the Mediterranean are currently very active for the setting up an Adriatic-Ionian strategy Today s seminar takes place in this context at the European scale: more and more, macroregions are recognized as a relevant scale to foster synergies between territories, between European and national policies, between public and private funds, to work on concrete projects of common interest. But in the case of the Black Sea and the Danube strategies, there s one more element that makes it particularly challenging and interesting: the interactions with neighbourhood policy. And I look forward to following the discussions on this later on today. If we wish the macro-regional strategies to succeed, and I believe that is what we are here for, a few points put forward by our task force on macro-regions should be taken into consideration: The Regions should be at the heart of the strategies with coordination at the European level. Nationalizing the strategy is the best way to take out its added value. All EU funds and financial instruments should be mobilized to make sure the strategies are implemented. The European Commission should solve its own governance problems that add complexity to the system. Depending on the strategies, DG REGIO or DG MARE are in charge, and I m sorry to say they might not cooperate as well as they should sometimes. The Danube strategy and the Black Sea strategy are obviously linked and should be treated as such. The European Commission has said no specific budget. If we do that, are we making sure the strategies have the best chances of success? On a more pragmatic approach, the member regions of the CPMR are currently working on their operational programmes in the framework of the relevant macroregional strategies. What we expect from the European Commission is to check the

5 partnership agreements to make sure the member states proposals are in line with said strategies. What the CPMR provides to its members, is the possibility to easily exchange best practices between its geographical commissions. I encourage you to develop contacts particularly with the Baltic Sea commission which has accumulated experience on macro-regional strategy. Their model could certainly not be applied to your macro-region as such of course, but you might gather valuable insight and advice. I also encourage the people in charge of territorial cooperation in your regions to call on the expertise of CPMR to help write their programmes for The CPMR will also pay attention to the new transnational Danube cooperation programme: will the Regions be associated to its writing we sincerely hope so and how? We ll have some more on macro-regions right away with the views of the European Commission. I m not expecting precise answers right now obviously, but we should definitely carry on the discussions. I wish you a constructive working session today. Thank you for your attention.