Eurocommissaris Andor wil beter voorspelbare financiering van het ESF om investeringen beter te beschermen (en)

Dear colleagues,

Johannes has highlighted to you the major points of the Cohesion Report and the conclusions we draw from it with regards to our future proposals.

The Report indeed demonstrates the important contribution that our policy and all its funds have made to both economic convergence of the poorer with the richer and of social and territorial cohesion.

One of the striking features of Report is the confirmation that education, skills and human capital matter tremendously for our economy. Numerous academic studies already have proved this point in the last decades. The Cohesion Report brings new statistical and analytical evidence showing that these are key factors for the future European growth.

It illustrates clearly that we were right to put a strong emphasis on people and their abilities within the new growth model that is the Europe 2020 strategy and through its targets. Indeed, as we come out of the crisis, important challenges lie ahead of us in this context - increasing employment, adapting qualifications, fighting social exclusion and poverty to name but a few. Moreover, wide disparities remain across the EU in those areas. So it is not only about boosting the EU economic potential, it is also clearly an issue of economic and social cohesion.

You will not be surprised if I say that I consider the ESF as an essential tool in this respect. It has the unique capacity to support all three dimensions of cohesion: social - through its focus on the most disadvantaged people and their integration in the labour market and society; economic - through up-skilling and fostering adaptability of workers and companies thus contributing to competitiveness; and territorial due to the fact that ESF delivery is mainly at local and regional level to reflect local specificities and needs.

Let me be clear - policy integration is a key principle of Europe 2020 and I am strongly attached to it. Cohesion Policy can play an important role in ensuring the necessary integration of EU funding. We need to improve the coherence of the different forms of EU assistance both within and outside cohesion policy. Johannes mentioned the ideas of a Common Strategic Framework and of Development and Partnership Contract we have put forward to achieve this. But I think that we also need to better define the scope of each fund to make things easier for beneficiaries. Too often, there are overlaps between the ESF and the ERDF which feed an increasing confusion on the nature and the objectives of each fund.

Let me also assure you that the ESF is and will remain very "territorially minded". I am very much aware that the involvement of local and regional authorities will be instrumental in the implementation and the ultimate success of the Europe 2020 strategy. We also need to strengthen the partnership principle with social partners, with local authorities and with non-governmental organisations in the design, implementation and monitoring. And we need to improve the access of local actors, and in particular the NGOs, to the fund.

There are areas which require a national approach and areas where the regional or local levels are better placed for delivery. Today, more than two-thirds of the ESF Operational Programmes (OPs) are regional ones. I do not intend to change this and I do not intend to make the ESF more "national". For me, the key principles are effectiveness, efficiency and subsidiarity - and programming should mirror these principles.

Cohesion policy including the ESF must also keep its strong element of solidarity expressed financially by the higher investments in the lagging regions as opposed to the richer ones.

But I am also convinced that to be successful, we need to be able to better protect our investment in people, even and perhaps precisely in those difficult times. That is why I think that funding volumes for the ESF must be made more predictable. This would show the interested public and the citizens that we are serious about our strategy. This would also help us to make our contribution to the key asset of our economy more visible.

Saying that, I also wish to stress my full support to the need to reflect together on how to enhance the impact of our investments. I support the ideas which Johannes outlined to you. I also wish us to reflect on how to make contributions to individual operations or parts of the operational programmes more linked to the outputs and the results that they achieve.

We also reflect on new ways how to increase the leverage of the ESF to generate the necessary resources. Taking inspiration from the successful experiences of the ERDF in this programming period. Helping national, regional and local authorities raise capital for the necessary policy reforms is one possible way. Promoting liquidity in markets for microcredit, small or student loans is another one.

We start today important discussions on the future shape of cohesion policy. One thing is clear - we can only be successful if we work closely together - at all levels.

I wish to thank you for all contributions you have already made to this debate and for those that you will still make. I am now looking forward to hearing your views.