in view of the renewal of the Territorial Agenda EU of the EU, to contribute to a broad EU-wide consultation on the future territorial vision post-2020, based on analytical work of the ESPON Programme, Territorial Thinkers, CPMR and work progress unfolded during the Estonian, Bulgarian, Austrian and Romanian Presidency of the Council;
to look for reasons, analyse challenges and problems connected with the CLLD multifund implementation and give recommendations for the setting and implementation scheme of the tool in the future programming period 2021+.
The CoR's opinion has been adopted on time to feed into intergovernmental negotiations on the content and scope of the renewed Territorial Agenda beyond 2020. The following main CoR recommendations have been so far considered in the ongoing negotiations:
building up the renewed TA on the existing TA 2020
specific issues that the TA should focus on
suggestion to draw up key messages in a user-friendly language and a well-defined format
clarification of the role of the newly set-up secretariat/back office
The CoR actively participates, at working level, in the discussions on the content and format of the TA 2030, introducing recommendations from the adopted opinion.
In addition, the rapporteur participated, as moderator/speaker, in a number of events on the implementation of CLLD, namely:
LEADER/CLLD 2019 Conference, 25-26 November 2019
Post 2020: Local Action in a changing world, 3-4 December 2019
4th Cities forum, 30-31 January 2020 (a joint letter co-signed by the CoR and EESC rapporteurs with key recommendations from their opinions was conveyed to Commissioner Ferreira)
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
- asks that the TA post-2020 strengthen the territorial dimension in a wider range of policy fields and actively encourage more bottom-up territorial visions/strategies, which should be coherent with a wider framework;
- asks for stronger links between cohesion policy and TA in all stages of programming, implementation and monitoring of programmes, and points out the significant need to overcome the current geographical and sectoral separation of EU funds;
- still endorses the idea that the TA post-2020 should not be a brand new document, as the current TA 2020 still remains valid in major aspects;
- suggests that a mechanism for a quick update of the TA post-2020 be introduced to quickly respond to new and emerging challenges that may shape the TA post-2020, without the need for a complete overhaul of the whole document;
- calls for mandatory earmarking of 8% for CLLD from all ESI funds and EAFRD to fully utilise the potential of the tool and synergies of different funds for integrated local development;
- commends the work carried out by CoR and the European Parliament to ensure that multi-funded CLLD continues to include the EAFRD, including for the 2021–2027 period;
- calls for CLLD regulation at EU level, setting a unified set of rules for all ESI funds in order to reduce the enormous bureaucratic burden and gold-plating;
- proposes that the Commission create a CLLD support unit at EU level to support communication, capacity building, networking and transnational cooperation of all LAGs in all funds;
- suggests that the multi-fund CLLD should be supported more, for example through a higher co-financing rate.