The new Regional Policy Commissioner, Pavel Samecki, is open to examining alternatives to GDP as an indicator of eligibility for European regions to access funding under the EU’s Cohesion Policy.

During a visit to the remote Spanish-controlled territories Ceuta and Melilla at the beginning of September, he alluded to the possibility of a more flexible approach to funding.

The move comes just after Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas announced his own intention to create an environmental sustainability index to rival GDP. The reason, Dimas says, is because a purely economic measure cannot assess overall social progress. “GDP was not intended to be a measure of well-being. It doesn’t pick up on issues that are vitally important to the quality of our lives, such as a clean environment, social cohesion or even how happy people are,” the communication says.

Green MEP Michail Tremopoulos (Greece) says that using alternative indices would benefit Europe’s outermost regions, which have seen a growth in GDP but little actual socio-economic development. “Paying attention to other criteria beyond GDP would be of interest for a better evaluation of their situation in the new context of the enlarged Europe,” he said.

However, while officials in Samecki’s office say the commissioner is “well aware of the limits of GDP” and supports Dimas’s paper, they admit that GDP per capita is the “most robust statistic” available in the field. According to their analysis, it is “unlikely” GDP will be replaced or complemented by other statistics in the short run – which means that the Commission will not touch the subject until after the 2013-2020 policy term.

Samecki’s stance echoes opinions put forward in April by Dr Fabrizio Barca, director-general of the Italian Finance Ministry, in a report for the EU executive on future Cohesion Policy.

But Dr Michael Schneider, a member of the German federal government and president of the Committee of the Regions’ Committee for Territorial Cohesion, thinks that there is room for discussing an alternative to GDP – in the short term – to help assess the effectiveness of Cohesion Policy. He says a central problem is what Barca called the “arbitrary” choice of using a 75% of GDP per capita threshold to define ‘lagging’ regions. He suggests creating a special objective under the new policy for ‘transition’ or in-between regions, say, those with a GDP of between 75% and 90% of the EU average. This would catch some vulnerable areas in Poland and the Czech Republic, for example, before they fall through the funding net after 2013.

Meanwhile, German MEP Elisabeth Schroedter (Greens-EFA) has proposed an own-initiative report on new indicators in the light of a study by the French-sponsored Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, released on 14 September. Led by American economist Joseph Stiglitz, the group is looking into alternative measurements of quality of life and sustainability.