The Baltic Sea strategy, a new political vision for Europe aimed at building a more territorial approach – both transnational and transregional – towards project implementation, was adopted in 2009. This first of its kind initiative is coping with all the initial problems and raising many questions, including the over-arching matter of the future financing of a ‘macro-regional’ approach that looks likely to develop.

The best way to respond to a region’s challenges and tap into its potential is to adopt an integrated multisectoral strategy “to provide both a coordinated, inclusive framework” and “concrete solutions to these challenges,” explains the European Commission in its 2009 communication on the Baltic Sea strategy ⁽¹⁾. This approach implies the interconnection of different EU policies and programmes, particularly cohesion, fisheries, the framework directive on the marine environment, agriculture and transport. All these interventions must respond to the needs of functional regions rather than be the result of predetermined financial and administrative criteria, the Commission suggested in its 2008 green paper on territorial cohesion ⁽²⁾.

Unfortunately, whether for the Integrated Maritime Policy or the Baltic Sea strategy, both of which are built on this principle of integration, their promoters – DG MARE and DG REGIO, respectively – developed these policies and strategies well after the EU financial framework for 2007-2013 had been put in place. There is barely a financial framework in either. This absence of a budget was deliberate because the intention in both cases was always that “no additional European funds” would be required. They operate on the principle of recommending more effective and more rational use of available funds and a reorientation by member states of certain Structural Fund allocations “for more effective coordination of territorial and sectoral policies on the basis of common territorial challenges”. The approach is very “regional in the broad sense”, even though the regions sometimes find themselves kept on the sidelines by governments when it comes to financing programmes. These are always decided at national level, on the basis of priorities that do not necessarily match those set under the two specific policies.

WITH OR WITHOUT STRUCTURAL FUNDS?

The Baltic Sea strategy is becoming a reality, however, despite complaints of a lack of coordination and synchronisation in its day-to-day management and financial contributions. The concept is gaining ground despite the obstacles. At the request of the Council, a Danube strategy is expected to follow by the end of 2010 and the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Atlantic Arc are already queuing up. That’s all well and good. However, the corollary of this attempt by regions to extend their scope of action to the transnational level is a parallel request for adaptation of Structural Funds to the macro-regions. This request comes just as the EU is getting ready to negotiate its general financial framework for 2013-2020, in which the debate on the very future of the Structural Funds promises to be tough.

Is it or is it not necessary to create a specific fund for the macro-regions? For the Commission and for the Council, the answer is ‘no’. Nor do they see a need for additional money or a new institutional body. Is it necessary to ‘reserve’ part of the Structural Funds for the macro-regions? The question is also asked for the small and medium-sized enterprises and for some environmental programmes. But would that not amount, if not to dismantling the Structural Funds, to at least considerably weakening their capacity for intervention for the specific policies for which they were created: agricultural and rural policy (the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund - EAGGF) and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), fisheries policy and social policy (Social Fund)?

Danuta Hübner, the former regional policy commissioner who now chairs the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI), initiated the concept of macro-regions. She thinks that the issue of funding is not the fundamental problem for macro-regions. She is pressing for better coordination of available funds and more precise ‘earmarking’ for projects financed by these programmes, more intervention by European financial institutions (European Investment Bank), national and/or regional ones and more involvement of the private sector.

⁽¹⁾ COM(2009)248
⁽²⁾ COM(2008)616 final