Regions and cities are key actors in delivering structural reforms on the ground and must therefore be adequately involved in their programming", emphasized PES member Olga Zrihen, member of the Walloon Parliament (Belgium). Her opinion on the Structural Reform Support Programme for the period 2017 to 2020 received unanimous backing by CoR members.
The Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP) proposed by the European Commission in November 2015 has been allocated EUR 142.8 million from the overall technical assistance appropriations under the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) and European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD). It aims – on a voluntary basis– to apply technical assistance experiences from Greece and Cyprus to structural reforms in all Member States.
While the Commission has put forward a very broad definition of eligible structural reforms, Olga Zrihen calls in her opinion for the SRSP to be limited to areas of European added value and that are not already targeted by a technical assistance programme.
The rapporteur also insists that "ownership of structural reforms on the ground, in particular through local and regional authorities and the social partners, is essential for the programme to be successful". Consequently, Member States wishing to benefit from the programme should bring local and regional authorities, as well as the social partners, civil society and other stakeholders, into the process of drawing up the application.
In terms of coordinating the SRSP with the EU programmes and instruments that co-finance technical assistance under the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF), the Internal Security Fund (ISF), and sectoral EU programmes, the rapporteur suggests that "the Union should draw up a single strategic document to determine which measures under the programme are to be prioritised and how available resources are to be allocated, as well as criteria and mechanisms to coordinate measures at Union, national, regional and local level".
Responding to criticism of using the overall technical assistance appropriations of the ESIF to fund the SRSP, Olga Zrihen warns of any attempts of fully 'semesterising' cohesion policy. "Financing the SRSP with left-overs from technical assistance under the Structural Funds cannot be a permanent structural solution, and we consider this programme to be a pilot programme. Before the beginning of the next financial programming period, starting in 2021, a decision will have to be made as to whether it would be beneficial to make the programme permanent, and, if so, whether establishing a fund of own resources to support structural reforms is necessary, feasible and desirable".
