Constitution of PARTENALIA Political Council

The constitution of PARTENALIA Political Council took place the 30^th June 2009 at the city of Lille (France).

This event brought together delegations of 15 PARTENALIA members and the Political Council adopted the Lille Declaration on the future Cohesion Policy. The Political Council also took an important decision appointing Mr. Juan Andrés TOVAR MENA, President of Cáceres Provincial Council (Spain), as the new President of the network.

Also two Vice-presidents have been elected:

Vice-president of PARTENALIA: Mr. Renaud TARDY, Vice-president of Conseil Général du Nord (France).
Vice-president of PARTENALIA: Mr. Serge HUSTACHE, Provincial deputy of Province de Hainaut (Belgium).

The fact that PARTENALIA counts with a political structure legitimates in a great extend the activities of the network and its capacity to influence the decisions that are taken at EU level. Taking into account that PARTENALIA represents more than 32 million inhabitants, the new structure will reinforce its role as the only actor that raise the voice of the Local Intermediate Authorities bringing together a local and global perspective.

PARTENALIA is looking forward to collaborating with you in this new period.

Please find attached the Lille Declaration on the future Cohesion Policy.

LILLE DECLARATION ON THE FUTURE COHESION POLICY

(Lille, 30th June 2009)

PARTENALIA is the only generalist European Network of Local Intermediate Authorities created at European level on the free decision of its members. It comprises Associaçao de Municipios do Distrito de Setúbal (PT), CG du Gard (FR), CG du Nord (FR), CG de Seine-Saint-Denis (FR), CG du Val de Marne (FR), CG du Var (FR), Diputación de Alicante (ES), Diputación de Almería (ES), Diputación de Badajoz (ES), Diputació de Barcelona (ES), Diputación de Cáceres (ES), Diputación de Cádiz (ES), Diputació de Castelló (ES), Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa (ES), Diputación de Ourense (ES), Diputación de Sevilla (ES), Provincia di Novara (IT), Provincia di Roma (IT), Provincia di Torino (IT), Région Bruxelles-Capitale (BE), Province de Hainaut (BE) and Provincie Gelderland (NL). Being observers CG du Haut Rhin (FR), CG du Bas Rhin (FR), Provincia di Terni (IT) and Provincia di Alessandria (IT).

PARTENALIA would like to highlight that the participation of Local Intermediate Authorities in the debate around the future of the Cohesion Policy is not only important but necessary. Local Intermediate Authorities can bring together both the global and local perspective.

Cohesion Policy needs its three legs: economical, territorial and social. The three of them need to be always taken into account as they reinforce each other.

In this sense, it is necessary to highlight that the current framework of Cohesion Policy is vague as there is no clarity in how the implementation of objectives is to be achieved and assessed. Moreover, the overlapping of different strategies like the Lisbon Strategy and the European Employment Strategy disperses the key priorities of Cohesion Policy. For this reason, it is necessary to concentrate Cohesion Policy priorities, which will make the EU action more visible to citizens, understandable, and will offer a common approach and discourse.

These priorities should involve demographic change, education and live-long learning, economical development through environmental patterns, migration, housing, social inclusion and innovation.

All those priorities have an important local dimension. Cohesion policy needs to mobilize local actors with a real commitment from all actors and resources.

Within this context PARTENALIA points out that:

PARTENALIA defines territorial cohesion as the balanced development for all territories, and the widespread access to basic infrastructure and services of general interest.

Because of the enormous territorial diversity within Europe, this access will have to be developed differently from area to area, taking into account the specific regional and local identity, as well as the assets and potential of each territory. Europe cannot continue with a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Better tailored measures are needed.

The impact of EU initiatives and policies should be considered carefully in analysing whether territorial cohesion is being promoted or, if on the contrary, regional disparities are increasing. Using the correct data will facilitate a better understanding, a better distribution of funds, as well as a better evaluation of the situation.

Social cohesion should be reinforced within Cohesion Policy because societies with big internal disparities tend to be less competitive. The reduction of the great economic and social disparities of local, regional and national authorities should not follow a seasonal pattern; cohesion must be a permanent objective of the EU.

In order to ensure economic cohesion, Cohesion Policy should be opened to all Member States and EU funds should be granted not only depending on the existence of a geographical territory, but also taking into account their challenges and economic potentialities to reinforce growth and competitiveness.

A modern regional policy must keep in mind high opportunity regions and their potential. EU policy must empower regions to fully utilise their own economic strength and actively tackle new challenges such as climate change. Support for strong regions in the form of funding, policy or administrative transparency will make a major contribution to the EU wide-achievement of European targets in terms of a more sustainable economic development.

And therefore proposes:

To maintain the Subsidiarity principle within a common framework of shared and clear priorities as the defining principle of Cohesion Policy.
To increase the participation of Local Intermediate Authorities in the conception and elaboration of regional development strategies, especially at a time of crisis when new sources of growth and methodologies are needed.
To take into account the territorial impact of EU initiatives and policies when analysing whether Cohesion Policy is being promoted or, if on the contrary, regional disparities are increasing.
To use appropriate data in order to facilitate a better understanding, a better distribution of funds, as well as a better evaluation of the situation.
To base Cohesion Policy not only on NUTS II indicators, but also on NUTS III level and below in order to take into consideration territories under difficulty within a competitive area for example, urban agglomerations hide situations of social exclusion which are impossible to detect at NUTS II level, as well as regions that hide big differences between their provinces.
To diversify indicators beyond the GDP per capita.
To take into consideration current challenges like housing, labour market difficulties, and the demographic change.
To work towards initiatives with a higher European added value through territorial cooperation.

Eventually, PARTENALIA states that:

Its members signed in June 2007 the Cáceres Declaration asking to strengthen the necessary role of Local Intermediate Authorities as advocates of issues relating to European Funds. The Cáceres Declaration is of vital importance and it is attached to the current declaration.

The network is a success story of territorial cooperation. For this reason, it asks for a rise of the budget for European Territorial Cooperation, being an area of Cohesion Policy that demonstrates particularly well the EU added-value.

Improved inter-regional co-operation ensures not only a co-ordinated approach to find solutions to common problems, but also recognises that innovative solutions are not delimited by existing territorial boundaries. A bigger budget would allow Local Intermediate Authorities to reinforce their actions and local impact from the current exchange of experiences/practices/know how, to the potential implementation of infrastructure, transport or accessibility projects in all European territories.

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ANNEX

Cáceres Declaration

During their meeting in Cáceres on 7 June 2007, the intermediate Local Administrations (NUTS III) attached to the Partenalia network analysed the Operational Programme design processes related to structural funds, the cohesion fund and the rural development fund for the 2007-2013 period.

They also reviewed the experiences of local participation in designing, implementing and monitoring the same types of funds in previous programme periods.

The preliminary conclusion of both analyses is that the Local Administration is a necessary and effective partner for achieving the proposed objectives and that its participation is equally necessary to aspects of OP design and monitoring, though insufficiently requested.

Following revision of our joint experiences, we can distinguish various key points and one common objective.

Key points:

There exists a direct relationship between the aims of the structural and cohesion funds and local actions connected with territorial promotion and development. It has been shown that intermediate Local Administrations possess structures with experience in the management of European funds and that evaluations of both their internal and external management of structural fund programmes in the preceding budget period have been highly positive.
The technological networks that these Administrations have established within their territory for daily communication provide them with a close-up view of the territory and its basic needs. As inter-municipality promotes the creation of systems of economy of scale through agreement strategies and the promotion of networked action, the Administration’s participation offers a huge added value insofar as it better defines priorities in the territories and can mobilize additional resources with which to achieve its priorities.
It is noted that visualization of the results obtained through application of structural and cohesion funds increases substantially in proportion to the involvement of local people, institutions and general actors in the territory where intervention occurs.
More direct and effective participation is sought for Local Administrations in the design of programmes, plans and policies that are co-financed by structural and development funds. Municipal entities such as provincial and/or municipal associations in a region or state can play a highly significant role with regard to this participation in building a discourse that is shared by the different member regions and states.
The participation of Local Administrations can provide mechanisms for plan design and monitoring with human and technical resources whose added value will be to introduce the expression of local requirements into initiatives co-financed by these funds.

Keeping these key points in mind and taking the guiding principles of European regional polices into consideration; using European regulations as a foundation and hoping to guarantee local autonomy and ensure effective application of the principle of subsidiarity, we would like to propose the following objective:

To strengthen the necessary role of intermediate Local Administrations as advocates each time any matter relating to European funds affecting their jurisdiction is designed or modified, whether that be in the programming and management processes or in those of evaluation and monitoring.

The design of the 2007-2013 Operational Programmes revealed certain differences in terms of local participation. Thus, once they have been approved it will be necessary to put measures in place to facilitate the necessary dialogue on the process of translating OPs into end actions to be carried out in each territory and on participation in the approved OP monitoring committees.

In view of the above and for the purposes of local participation analysis, the Administrations meeting in Cáceres present the following proposals:

Effective participation in drawing up regional plans and policies deriving from the OPs.
Effective participation in the monitoring committees, in accordance with Articles 11, 15 and 63 of 1083/2006. This includes participation in the intermediate revision of OPs and in reprogramming decisions.
Recognition of the work of intermediate authorities, which should be reflected in official documents.
European institutions should include intermediate Local Administrations in clear and concise decision-making processes relating to the design and management of European funds.
Establishment of local participation in the management of financial resources, initiated by the intermediate Local Administrations and based upon criteria defined jointly with the Operational Programme management authority.

Constitution of PARTENALIA Political Council

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