EUROPEAN UNION Committee of the Regions Territorial Pacts: Making the Most of Europe 2020 through Partnership FAQs on the Committee of the Regions proposal for local, regional and national authorities to design and implement the Europe 2020 strategy in partnership
What is a Territorial Pact for Europe 2020? A Territorial Pact for Europe 2020 is an agreement between a country s tiers of government (local, regional, national). Parties signing up to a Territorial Pact commit to coordinate and synchronise their policy agendas in order to focus their actions and financial resources on the Europe 2020 Strategy goals and targets. Why is the Committee of the Regions promoting Territorial Pacts? Each country has its own starting point contingent on its own socio-economic and territorial situation and its own constitutional structure and distribution of powers between various tiers of government. The Territorial Pacts will give the Europe 2020 strategy a territorial dimension and territorial ownership. This contractual approach, underpinned by adequate indicators and targets shared between all partners, would unleash the synergies and systemic effects that countries need to meet the Europe 2020 goals. The Territorial Pacts would then help bridge the gap between the goals of the new strategy and what the European Commission s Annual Growth Survey for 2011 calls a lack of ambition showed by the preliminary versions of the national reform programmes submitted in November 2010. The broad partnership that the Europe 2020 strategy requires must be put into practice in each territory through concrete measures and through responsibility for implementation being shared between the national, local and regional levels. Therefore I invite you to conclude Territorial Pacts, in which the structural funds will of course play a role, with your national governments. Mercedes Bresso, President of the EU Committee of the Regions, November 2010 What are the possible objectives of a Territorial Pact? A Territorial Pact should allow a country s national, regional and local governments to draft and implement the Europe 2020 National Reform Programme in partnership and to monitor its progress. To this end, a Territorial Pact should aim at: setting national and possibly regional targets, with recourse, when necessary, to indicators and targets other than GDP; implementing one or several flagship initiatives; identifying obstacles to the achievement of the targets at national level. 2
Europe 2020 The Europe 2020 strategy was launched by the European Council in June 2010. It aims to boost recovery after the economic crisis and put the EU on a path towards smart, sustainable and inclusive growth by 2020. Five headline targets have been set for the EU as a whole and seven flagship initiatives (Innovation Union, Youth on the move, A digital agenda for Europe, Resource- efficient Europe, An industrial policy for the globalisation era, An agenda for new skills and jobs, and European platform against poverty) have been launched to help the strategy achieve its goals. By the end of April 2011, EU national governments have to submit their National Reform Programmes setting out how they will implement Europe 2020 at national level. The European Commission and the European Council will assess the NRPs and the relevant annual implementation reports, and issue guidelines and country-specific recommendations not only on macroeconomic and fiscal policies but also on ways of making the most of the new strategy. Strict co-ordination between EU monitoring of macroeconomic and fiscal policies and policies addressing structural problems is at the core of the European semester, the new approach to economic policy co-ordination adopted by the EU which has been in place since January 2011. As part of this process, progress on both economic policy coordination and country achievements is assessed by the European Commission in the Annual Growth Survey, to be published each January. (http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm). When should a Territorial Pact be set up? Territorial Pacts should be set up in 2011 in order to give all those directly involved and any other stakeholders the opportunity to take an active part in the development of the Europe 2020 strategy. From the beginning, my objective has been to deliver the Europe 2020 strategy with a wide range of partners, including the Committee of the Regions as well as regional and local authorities. ( )We are very much in favour of your idea of territorial pacts. I will push member states to accept involvement of all parties in territorial pacts. José Manuel Barroso, European Commission President, CoR Plenary Session December 2010 TERRITORIAL PACTS: MAKING THE MOST OF EUROPE 2020 THROUGH PARTNERSHIP 3
What are the basic features of a Territorial Pact? A Territorial Pact may include: legal provisions, identifying which policies are needed and setting out how those policies can be adapted in order to secure more efficient delivery of the structural reforms required under the Europe 2020 strategy; financial provisions, detailing which resources (EU, national or local, public or private funding) will be used to reach the targets; governance provisions, giving information on possible new arrangements to deliver policies more effectively. There is no one-size-fits-all recipe: in each country, those involved in a Territorial Pact should design it to reflect their local conditions, needs and starting points and provide for a monitoring and evaluation mechanism on which to base any revisions that might be needed. How could the EU institutions provide tangible support to a Territorial Pact? With due regard for the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, the EU institutions could support the Territorial Pacts through: increased focus, coordination and administrative simplification in the management of EU policy instruments and funding channels; structured and regular monitoring of how the National Reform Programmes are designed and implemented; broader use of territorial impact assessments. The idea of Territorial Pacts ( )is a valuable contribution to our reflections on the Europe 2020 Strategy and has enormous potential for its implementation. Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council Why is the Partnership Contract proposed by the European Commission the other side of the coin of a Territorial Pact? The European Commission Communication on the EU Budget Review (19 October 2010) contains two proposals for the new Multi-annual Financial Framework covering the period after 2013, which tie in with the approach underlying the proposal of Territorial Pacts: 1) a Development and Investment Partnership Contract between the Commission and each Member State, reflecting the commitments of partners at national and regional level as a support for the implementation of the Europe 2020 National Reform Programmes; 2) a common Strategic Framework to increase the consistency of policies for the delivery of Europe 2020 goals, replacing the current approach of separate sets of strategic guidelines for the Structural Funds, while at the same time identifying linkages and co-ordination mechanisms with other EU financial instruments. 4
How could cohesion policy play a role in a Territorial Pact? The Europe 2020 goals need sufficient investments. Quality of expenditure is no less important than quantity. From a financial point of view, cohesion policy input to the Europe 2020 goals, without prejudice to its solidarity mission, will be crucial. Resources actually spent on Europe 2020-related actions by the EU, national, regional and local governments in the first place the EU Structural Funds - should focus on selected Europe 2020 priorities identified in the Territorial Pacts. The suggested Investment and Development Partnership Contracts could feed into the Territorial Pacts after 2013. Conditions for Europe 2020 to deliver On 4 October 2010, the Bureau of the Committee of the Regions highlighted the following six elements that it feels are crucial to making the most of this opportunity: Firstly, the new strategy has to be given a territorial dimension, that is to say, it has to take into account existing differences in territorial conditions and starting points and translate them into place-based policies encompassing the three pillars of the strategy (smart, sustainable and inclusive growth), underpinned by territorial indicators and targets (including those deemed beyond GDP). Secondly, the EU, national, regional and local government levels should work in partnership with a view to implementing sectoral policies in a co-ordinated and integrated way, not least by means of contractual multilevel governance agreements, when needed, in order to make the most of the Europe 2020 opportunity. Thirdly, bottlenecks (remaining barriers to the single market, lack of certain EU-wide infrastructures, inadequate regulation of the financial markets) have to be removed at both EU and national level. Fourthly, Europe 2020 should be developed in a context in which EU cohesion policy remains available to all EU territories. While contributing to the Europe 2020 goals, cohesion policy should be assigned enough financial resources to focus effectively on the less developed areas of the Union, thus fulfilling its Treaty-based solidarity obligation. Fifthly, the Commission should assess the territorial impact of policy measures related to Europe 2020 in a much more systematic way. To be more credible than the Lisbon strategy, Europe 2020 should also be more evidence-based. Sixthly, the new strategy should be taken as an opportunity for drastic administrative simplification of all the policy instruments and funding channels and procedures involved. This overhaul should not be aimed only at reducing administrative burdens, in line with the EU Better Regulation objectives. Instead, it should also be seen as an opportunity to align the actions taken under the Europe 2020 flagship initiatives with existing policy actions and procedures in order to ensure transparency and avoid duplication. (Full CoR Bureau documents at http://portal.cor.europa.eu/europe2020/news/pages/2010/coroctoberbureau2010.aspx) TERRITORIAL PACTS: MAKING THE MOST OF EUROPE 2020 THROUGH PARTNERSHIP 5
Are there any examples of Territorial Pacts? What are their common features and how can we learn from them? Although the scope of Territorial Pacts for Europe 2020 might seem ambitious, multilevel agreements aimed at achieving socio-economic goals have been established during the past decade in a number of different countries, for instance Austria (Territorial Employment Pacts 2007-2013), Belgium (Flanders in Action Pact 2020), the UK (The Greater Nottingham Partnership), France (Territorial Pact for Inclusion), Germany (The BMBF Innovation Initiative Entrepreneurial Regions) and Spain (Catalonia s territorial pacts for the countryside). These examples vary widely in terms of The approach proposed by the Committee of the Regions on multi-level governance has proven its worth and territorial pacts are indeed worth promoting. Bence Rétvári, Hungary's Deputy Minister for Public Administration and Justice, CoR Plenary Session, January 2011 the tiers of administration involved (local, regional, national, European); the nature of the partnership (vertical or horizontal); the type of remit (setting guidelines or delivering); the area of action (very broad or specific); the sectors involved (examples include: delivering services for citizens or for enterprises; and promoting administrative simplification); the duration of the agreement (temporary or permanent); funding (European, national, local or private; no funding). EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT The European Parliament ( )calls for the multi-level governance principle to be integrated into all phases of design and implementation of the EU2020 Strategy to ensure real ownership of the results by the regional and local authorities, which have to implement it; highlights in this connection the proposal for a Territorial Pact of Local and Regional Authorities for Europe 2020 to encourage regions and cities to contribute to the successful achievement of the objectives of the 2020 Strategy. European Parliament, Resolution on good governance with regards to the EU regional policy, December 2010 These differences reflect not only different goals, but also actual differences between the countries concerned and their socio-economic, cultural, institutional, environmental diversity. In order to encourage stakeholders to exchange information on activities in this area, the Committee of the Regions Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform has put in place a to make it easier to share experience and encourages experience-based contributions, input and comments. To submit your contribution and for more information please visit this website: www.cor.europa.eu/europe2020 or contact the Platform team at europe2020@cor.europa.eu. 6
Committee of the Regions and Europe 2020 The view that Europe 2020 should be designed in partnership between all tiers of government is shared by all EU institutions. The Committee of the Regions, in its capacity as the consultative body representing EU cities and regions, is currently working on opinions on the Europe 2020 flagship initiatives. To see the progress made in the adoption of these opinions, please visit the Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform website. In order to assess the progress of the strategy, the Committee of the Regions issues its Monitoring Report on Europe 2020 every December based on the work done by the CoR Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform. bureaux d architecture Atelier Paul Noël sprl - Art & Build s.a. TERRITORIAL PACTS: MAKING THE MOST OF EUROPE 2020 THROUGH PARTNERSHIP 7
CoR: 1003/FEB2011/EN EUROPE 2020 Monitoring Platform www.cor.europa.eu/europe2020 EUROPEAN UNION Committee of the Regions Rue Belliard/Belliardstraat, 101 _ 1040 Bruxelles/Brussel _ BELGIQUE/BELGIË Tel. +32 2 282 22 11_Fax +32 2 282 20 87