Seven presidents of regions that are members of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) have sent an open letter to the European Commission president. 

Rennes, 26 October 2009

Dear President Barroso,

As the whole of Europe prepares to welcome the forthcoming enforcement of the Lisbon Treaty and is gearing up for debate on the strategic guidelines and EU policies that will help to recreate the conditions for a thriving sustainable development to be shared throughout the European territory, we wish to convey to you our incomprehension and deepest concern regarding the draft communication on the future EU budget and its main policies, which is currently being prepared by the European Commission’s services.

Although only a draft at this stage, this document sets out a series of proposals whose foreseeable consequences are so detrimental to sustainable recovery in Europe that we feel it is our duty as regional leaders to warn you as early as possible.

The strategic reflection that underlies the exercise in question, and the three priority areas of action that have been identified as the basis for the future European budget (sustainable growth and jobs, energy and climate, and the EU as a global player), cannot but be welcomed since they respond to a fundamental need for the European Union to adapt to the global and multipolar world of the 21st century, a need that the CPMR has been striving to highlight for the past few years.

In contrast, the proposals for implementing these priorities within EU policies do not make sense and are unacceptable in this day and age. In addition to dismantling EU Regional Policy, which would be renationalised and limited to the poorest member states, the draft document proposes a sectoral reorganisation of EU policies, which completely disregards the territorial dimension and the principle of territorial cohesion.

By questioning the advantage of involving sub-national governments in delivering EU policies, this approach goes against all the concurring recommendations that international organisations, such as the OECD, have been issuing in recent years, and which stress the strength and diversity that a territorial approach can deliver to the development and diversification of the European economy in order to provide a more robust and sustainable structure to both take account of and address the impacts of globalisation. It ignores the most basic evidence of the need for a territorial approach and the advantage of multilevel governance on the road to both economic recovery and low carbon economies, and which is becoming apparent at this very moment in the diverse nature of the impacts of the economic and social crisis and the responses that are being provided. You yourself on several occasions have affirmed how essential the role of subnational government is in order to effectively deliver EU policies within the territories.

From our experience, we know that large-scale sectoral programmes alone (eg research and innovation, employment, climate change, transport or migration) will not achieve the right results to address the cross-cutting challenges we face today. Only an integrated mechanism involving subnational public actors - one like Regional Policy through the Structural Funds - will make it possible to mobilise territorial forces effectively in order to combat the asymmetric shocks arising from Europe’s insertion into the global economy and to help develop a low carbon society. By reducing Cohesion Policy to a simple charity hand-out, and a low-cost one at that, those responsible for drafting this document are, in our view, making a grave mistake.

Finally, it would be a mockery if guidelines like these were to be advocated by your Commission just as the Lisbon Treaty looks likely to come into force, since they are so far removed from the principles of territorial cohesion and sub-national subsidiarity that this very treaty introduces.

The challenges that Europe is facing most certainly deserve a fresh response. This will be all the more complicated insofar as the economic situation means that some tough political and financial decisions need to be made. In this respect, the current proposals do put forward some interesting points, but once again they convey a vision that tends to automatically stigmatise one of the main policies of the EU budget, namely Regional Policy. We have fought against this vision in the past and will fight against it once more, since in our view it is a simplistic and largely unfounded opinion.

Pending the establishment of the new Commission, all these reasons lead us to refuse to believe that you will agree to endorse a draft communication of this kind.

On 27 November 2009 we, as regional leaders, will be meeting in Marseille in order to put forward our analyses and proposals for leading Europe out of the crisis. We should be most honoured if you were to accept to take part in this event and debate with us. Should you not be available on this occasion, the CPMR would be keen to meet you at your earliest convenience to discuss this issue.

Yours sincerely,

Claudio MARTINI, president of the CPMR, president of the Regional Government of Tuscany

Vicente Alberto ÁLVAREZ ARECES, president of the Principality of Asturias

Roland ANDERSSON, president of Region Västra-Götaland

Jean-Yves LE DRIAN, president of Brittany Regional Council

Christel LILJESTRÖM, president of the Regional Council of Itä-Uusimaa

Alex MACDONALD, Convener of Western Isles

Alain ROUSSET, president of Aquitaine Regional Council