PAPER E
|
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PLANNING, TOURISM AND LEISURE SERVICES SELECT COMMITTEE – 23 JUNE 2003 UPDATE ON
ACTIVITIES OF THE HAMPSHIRE, ISLE OF WIGHT, WEST SUSSEX BRUSSELS OFFICE REPORT OF THE
HEAD OF CORPORATE POLICY AND COMMUNICATIONS |
To
inform Members of the activities of the Hampshire, isle of Wight and West
Sussex Brussels office for the period December 2002 to May 2003.
Members
continue to support the work of the Brussels office.
BACKGROUND
Daniella Terruso, European Liaison Officer based in our Brussels office, presented a report to this Committee on 13 December 2002. She gave a resume of the history of the Brussels office, its role and function and the personnel involved. Members requested that she report back to the Committee on a regular basis on the activities of the Brussels office. Her report is attached as Appendix 1.
Members may wish to note the move in Europe to increase the involvement of local and regional authorities in its consultation process as these are seen to be a more appropriate link to the citizen than national governments as they are closer to them. The UK Government’s Regionalism agenda can be seen as part of this process.
RELEVANT
PLANS, POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND PERFORMANCE INDICATORS
The work of the Brussels office links in to the Regeneration Strategy for the Isle of Wight, which is due for review.
CONSULTATION
PROCESS
Not
Applicable
FINANCIAL
IMPLICATIONS
The Council
is committed to contributing £20,000 per year to the Hampshire, Isle of Wight,
West Sussex Brussels Office until March 2005.
LEGAL
IMPLICATIONS
None
The report on Brussels office activities is attached at Appendix 1 .
Draft
European Constitution
Contact
Point : , F John Bentley
Head of
Policy and Communications
Ext 3346
Head
of Corporate Policy and Communications
Appendix
1
Report
on Brussels Office Activities
Daniella
Terruso
European
Liaison officer
1 This report builds on the presentation and report that I gave to this committee in December 2002 on the functions of the Brussels Office. The purpose of this report and accompanying presentation is to explore three topics of importance this year, how the Isle of Wight is actively involved in these debates, and what it can do to achieve results with the Brussels Office Partnership and others, which will have lasting benefits to the local community.
2
To recap, it has been well documented that Brussels is very much an
insider’s town where it is difficult for outsiders to arrive, win the day
through persuasion and go home again.
This is why you joined the Brussels office in 1997 in partnership with
Hampshire, and since 1999 with West Sussex, and have a strong support network
for your European activities – through membership of the Committee of the
Regions[1],
and membership of leading European networks: the Conference of Peripheral and
Maritime Regions (CPMR) and Arc Manche.
This web of contacts helps the Isle of Wight to play an active role on
the European scene, and stands it in good stead to deal with new European
initiatives as they arise. Here follow
some examples of current European initiatives:
Background
3
It has been clear for some time that the European Union should be
reformed to enable it to cope with the challenges in the new millennium
including enlargement to 25 countries next May. The failure of the Nice Treaty to tackle some of the thornier
issues related to institutional reform provided evidence that a better approach
to negotiating treaties was necessary.
To allow for a wide and frank discussion of all the issues, the
Convention on the Future of Europe started work in early 2002.
4
There are 108 members comprised of national governments and
parliaments, the Commission, the European Parliament, the 10 accession states,
(who will join the EU next year), Romania and Bulgaria, (who may join the EU in
the next few years), and Turkey (who has yet to fix a date to begin negotiating
its entry to the EU). Representatives
from non-governmental organisations and academia are also present. The Convention is presided over by former
French President, Valérie Giscard d‘Estaing.
British representatives to the Convention include Peter Hain, who took
up this role when he was Europe Minister.
5 The Convention’s objective is to assist the
25 national governments of the newly enlarged EU that will sign the new
European Treaty or Constitution to prepare for an Intergovernmental Conference
in the autumn. The Convention President
published a draft Constitutional Treaty at the end of May, which heralded
intensive debate and lobbying in Brussels.
Interest for Isle of Wight
6 The main points of debate that are of most
interest to regions and localities are summarised below:
- The role
of representative democratic institutions in the EU
- The role
of the COR as a political or advisory institution
- Subsidiarity
or the role of national parliaments, the COR and individual regions and
localities in European policy making
- The
emphasis on transnational co-operation as a measure of the added value in
European activities
- The role
of regions and localities in the creation of an area of free movement,
security, and justice.
7 The Committee of the Regions has observed the entire Convention process and has worked hard to secure a good deal for regions and local authorities. As Cllr. Mrs. Smart is an alternate member of the COR, this provides the Isle of Wight with an inside track to support COR efforts. The CPMR has also actively contributed to the debate in Brussels.
Following a meeting of Arc
Manche[2]
in May, a position paper is in preparation for circulation in the next week on
what impact the draft constitutional proposals will have on southern England
and northern France, and will be discussed by Members on 3-4th July
in Rouen. Cllr. Rees will attend this
meeting. The paper will then be used at
a meeting between the Convention Commissioner, Michel Barnier, and regional
Presidents from around Europe on 8th July to discuss the
Constitution. The Arc Manche French
regional Presidents will attend this meeting, and RDA chairmen will represent
English regions.
Background
8
In February, Daniella was appointed as the UK representative to the
Environmental Platform for Regional Offices (EPRO) for one year, and is already
playing an active role. EPRO is a
network created in 2001 by the Directorate General for the Environment (DG ENV)
at the Commission and the Brussels Officers.
It is composed of one representative per Member State and Accession
Country, who participates on a voluntary basis and provides regular feedback on
EPRO’s progress and opportunities to the rest of his or her national
group. It meets once a month with a
different official from DG ENV to discuss new policy initiatives and funding
programmes.
9
EPRO’s informal set up and ‘can-do’ approach, has contributed to its
success in getting DG ENV to open up about issues of interest to local
authorities at the earliest stages of policy development. This can be demonstrated by the
opportunities offered by DG ENV, and the proactive stance by EPRO.
10
On the one hand, since the start of the network, DG ENV has asked for
local and regional authority representatives to help develop new policies and legislation
on 9 issues including soil protection, biodiversity and coastal erosion. Usually such working groups are restricted
to representatives of national government.
11
On the other hand, EPRO is also taking the initiative. EPRO recently identified a problem in some
Member States where local and regional authorities did not feel they were being
fully informed about, or given the chance to play a part in, the implementation
of a major directive by their national government. Having spoken to DG ENV about this issue, the first EPRO seminar
was organised by Daniella and three other Brussels Offices on 4th
June on the role for local and regional authorities in the implementation of
the water framework directive. At the
meeting, over 80 participants from around Europe expressed their concerns to
representatives from DG ENV, including the Director for quality of life issues,
Prudencio Perera. The conclusions of
the meeting will be uploaded on the Commission’s website ‘Circa’ and will serve
as useful advice for the Commission, European Parliamentarians and national
governments. It has proved a useful
formula for dialogue with local and regional authorities, and plans are
underway for other seminars later in the year.
Interest for Isle of Wight
12
Both aspects of EPRO’s work provide opportunities for Isle of Wight
officers to get involved in European policy making at the ‘blank page’ stage of
development, and to have constructive dialogue with the Commission on local
implementation issues where local authorities are charged with putting
Brussels-negotiated texts into effect on the ground. Daniella is sitting on EPRO for one year only, so it is essential
to maximise her membership to help build up a range of contacts in the
Commission and the other regions involved in EPRO on issues of concern to the
Isle of Wight. Robin McInnes and his
team are fully aware of the opportunities offered by EPRO and are lending
support to Daniella in this work.
Background
13 The current round
of structural funds[3] will end in
2006. Work has begun in southeast
England to put the case for funding in the region in the context of a larger
European Union with 25 member states. A
paper was published late last year, which was adopted by the Joint Europe
Committee (JEC) in January, and endorsed by the South East England Regional
Assembly Executive[4].(SEERA).
14
The Committee of the Regions (COR), the Conference of Peripheral and
Maritime Regions (CPMR), the Assembly of European Regions (AER) and the
Association of Border Regions jointly organised a Conference on 5-6 May 2003 in
Leipzig to kick-off a Europe-wide debate on the future of cohesion policy in
the enlarged EU. Over 500 representatives of cities and regions from across the
present and future EU member states attended, including Ron Moys from Kent
County Council to promote the southeast England paper[5],
and Cllr. David Kirk from Hampshire County Council to promote recent work
carried out by AER on regionalism.
15 The conference's final declaration argues
that the forthcoming reform of regional
and cohesion policy should follow six guiding principles:
- Pursue a
genuine Community regional development and cohesion policy;
- Maintain a
genuine Community approach and method;
- Increase
the role of local and regional government;
- Include a
territorial dimension to the objective of economic and social cohesion
alongside coordination of regional policy with the main sectoral policies;
- Give an
important role to sustainable development and balanced competitiveness;
- Regard the
threshold of 0.45 per cent of Community GDP as the basis for the regional
policy budget after 2006.
16 Commenting on the debates, Birmingham City
Council Leader, Cllr Bore, who is currently COR President, said that there was
a consensus among regions that the majority of resources should go to those
regions with less than 75 per cent of average GDP. For other regions and
localities, he suggested that support should be focused on improving economic
potential to help meet the Lisbon objectives for sustainable growth[6],
and that this should be the new focus of any future Objective 2 programme.
17 The Leipzig Declaration will be handed to
Regional Policy Commissioner, Michel Barnier, at the July plenary session of
the CoR in Brussels where the CoR's first ‘outlook’ opinion on the
simplification of structural funds management and its opinion on the
Commission's Second Report on Cohesion will be debated and adopted.
Interest for Isle of Wight
18 The southeast, coordinated by Kent County
Council, is working together on this Issue, and has also joined forces to
comment on the national debate sparked off by the government’s consultation
paper ‘A modern regional policy for the United Kingdom’, published on 6th
March. The southeast concerns, as discussed at the April JEC meeting, are:
Conclusion
21
From the examples I have provided, you can see that there are plenty of
opportunities for the Isle of Wight to play an active European role, making
full use of the support that is available to it through the Brussels Office
Partnership, southeast groups, the COR, and membership of CPMR and Arc
Manche.
22 The Hampshire, Isle of Wight and West
Sussex Brussels Office partnership held an officers meeting earlier last week[8]
to discuss the ways in which the partners can work together throughout the rest
of this financial year and beyond, and further details on the outcomes of that
meeting will be available at Committee.
Full information on the Brussels Office activities is available from
Lesley Williams.
[1] Europe’s
consultative body to advise the Commission, European Parliament and national
governments on the impact of European activities at the local and regional
level.
[2] Arc Manche is a network of southern
English counties and unitaries and the northern French regions. Isle of Wight is a member.
[3] The Isle of Wight
has access to Objective 3 for training and social affairs, Interreg for
interregional and transnational cooperation, Equal for social affairs and
Leader+ for rural development
[4] “Building a bigger Europe South East
England’s view on the future of cohesion policy”
[5] “Building a bigger Europe South East
England’s view on the future of cohesion policy”
[6] These objectives were agreed at a
European heads of government summit in Lisbon three years ago. Each spring they are reviewed and
updated. You can find more information
at: http://www.ibeurope.com/Database/Factsheets/F049spring03.htm
[7] “Building a bigger Europe South East
England’s view on the future of cohesion policy” – page 7
[8] 16th June 2003