Activities of Irène TOLLERET related to 2023/2048(INI)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the implementation of territorial development (CPR, Title III, Chapter II) and its application in the European Territorial Agenda 2030
Amendments (37)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 4 a (new)
Citation 4 a (new)
– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/1056 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2021 establishing the Just Transition Fund3a _________________ 3a OJ L 231, 30.6.2021, p. 1
Amendment 2 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 4 b (new)
Citation 4 b (new)
– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/2115 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 2 December 2021 establishing rules on support for strategic plans to be drawn up by Member States under the common agricultural policy (CAP Strategic Plans) and financed by the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) and by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and repealing Regulations (EU) No 1305/2013 and (EU) No 1307/20133b, _________________ 3b OJ L 435, 6.12.2021, p. 1
Amendment 3 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 4 c (new)
Citation 4 c (new)
– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2020/2220 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 December 2020 laying down certain transitional provisions for support from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and from the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF) in the years 2021 and 2022 and amending Regulations (EU) No 1305/2013, (EU) No 1306/2013 and (EU) No 1307/2013 as regards resources and application in the years 2021 and 2022 and Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 as regards resources and the distribution of such support in respect of the years 2021 and 20223c, _________________ 3c OJ L 437, 28.12.2020, p. 1
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas rural areas face the urgent challenges of demographic decline and ageing, especially affecting EU farming populations, along with rural abandonment, lack of or poor access to public and private infrastructure and services, including particularly digital infrastructure, mobility, healthcare and social services, education and training, as well as low incomes and fewer job opportunities;
Amendment 7 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 30 a (new)
Citation 30 a (new)
– having regard to the working paper produced by the Directorate- General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission entitled “The geography of EU discontent and the regional development trap” published in March 2023,
Amendment 7 #
Draft opinion
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
Aa. whereas SME play a particularly important role in rural areas as employers, as facilitators of a diversification of farm income and as sponsors of social and cultural life and thus help to make rural areas more attractive to young people;
Amendment 9 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 30 b (new)
Citation 30 b (new)
– having regard to the analysis produced by the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) entitled “ITI and CLLD. The use of integrate territorial tools in cohesion policy” published in December 2022,
Amendment 9 #
Draft opinion
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas the digital and green transitions offer opportunities for stronger, connected, resilient, innovative and prosperous rural areas in the long term; whereas an up-to-date digital infrastructure is a precondition for digital and smart farming solutions and hence the success of the green transition, as well as a key enabler for competitive SME in rural areas;
Amendment 10 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas cohesion policy is the main investment policy for the EU’s regions and cities and the Territorial Agenda is the guiding instrument for the European Union’s territorial policy; whereas the Territorial Agenda provides orientation for strategic spatial planning, calls for strengthening the territorial dimension of sector policies at all governance levels and seeks to promote an inclusive and sustainable future for all places and to help achieve Sustainable Development Goals in Europe;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas the place-based approach to policy making based on integrated territorial development aims to unleash unique potential related to territorial capital, knowledge and assets, while recognising the need for tailored solutions in different types of territories;
Amendment 18 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas it appears that the main difficulties encountered by local actors for the period 2014-2020 were a lack of skills and knowledg, knowledge and capacity building, a poor multi-level cooperation between different levels of governance, in addition to a slow absorption of funds and bureaucratic barriers;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Recalls that small and family farms and SME are the backbone of EU rural areas, providing food security and ecosystem services for European citizens;
Amendment 24 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas micro-cohesion is a form of balance for underdeveloped areas within more developed regions; whereas intraregional disparities can only be addressed by paying more attention to the diversity of territories, along with their development potential and challenges, and designing place-based policies and strategies;
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
Ha. whereas the implementation of ITIs and CLLD remains uneven across the Union and several Member States and managing authorities show weak commitment in implementing integrated territorial development; whereas interpretation and implementation of Policy Objective “Europe closer to citizens” (PO 5) is not being understood and used in the same way in each Member States, resulting in low implementation of ITI and CLLD;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
I. whereas the Territorial Agenda 2030 (TA2030) invites the European Parliament and its Committee on Regional Development to take its objectives into account by advocating its priorities in EU legislative processes; whereas integrated territorial development and place-based policies are necessary conditions to achieve the EU strategic objectives such as the green and digital transitions;
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I a (new)
Recital I a (new)
Ia. whereas place-based policies can help territories to escape from long-term economic decline and the so-called “regional development trap”, in which a region is unable to retain its economic dynamism in terms of income, productivity, and employment; whereas territories which feel left behind are faced with disengagement and discontent of their citizens in the long term;
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph -1 (new)
Paragraph -1 (new)
-1. Highlights the importance of the bottom-up approach to territorial development, which is a vehicle for social innovation and capacity building, empowering citizens to take ownership of the development of their territories through the design and implementation of strategies and projects; calls for a paradigm shift in the implementation of cohesion policy and a mainstreaming of the bottom-up approach;
Amendment 54 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Stresses the valuable contribution to territorial development delivered by actions implemented through CLLD such as those under the LEADER programme; calls on the Commission and the Member States to reinforce LEADER by increasing its budgetary envelope, by guaranteeing high level of autonomy of the Local Action Groups regarding their constitution and their decision making and reducing the administrative burden;
Amendment 54 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5a. Calls on the Member States to make effective use of the various funding opportunities also with a view to improving the prospects of SMEs, given their major role in generating employment in rural areas, and calls on the Commission to monitor and assess whether its support reaches rural areas and benefits their communities;
Amendment 55 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls on the Commission to use the results of the 2024 evaluation report for the 2014-2020 programming period to support programmes for the period 2021-202716 ; _________________ 16 Article 57 CPR tasks DG REGIO with conducting an evaluation of the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund by the end of 2024notes the importance of qualitative analysis of territorial development tools; regrets, in this regards, the conclusion of the special report of the European Court of Auditors on LEADER and community- led local development16a; _________________ 16 Article 57 CPR tasks DG REGIO with conducting an evaluation of the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund by the end of 2024. 16a European Court of Auditors, Special report 10/2022: LEADER and community-led local development facilitates local engagement but additional benefits still not sufficiently demonstrated.
Amendment 58 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Welcomes the Handbook of territorial and development strategies and the Handbook of Sustainable Urban Development Strategies as guides for the design, implementation and monitoring of territorial and urban development strategies; regrets, however, the belated publication of these Handbooks and encourages the Commission to produce timely guidelines to simplify the process for elaboration of the operational programmes; highlights the need to offer more guidance to Member States on the implementation of the Policy Objective “Europe closer to citizens” (PO 5) and incentives to allocate more funding to PO 5, such as allowing for projects contributing to more than one PO to count for thematic concentration of both POs;
Amendment 61 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Calls on the Member States to promote strategic spatial planning that takes into account territories as a whole beyond metropolitan, urban and functional areas; further calls on Member States to strengthen rural-urban links as one way to achieve better balanced territorial development across the Union;
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Calls on the Commission to promoteearmark funding for TA2030 programmeintegrated territorial development in rural areas and regions which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps in the same way that 8 % of the cohesion policy funds are earmarked for the development of programmes under the Urban Agenda;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Stresses the need for a paradigm shift in the involvement of local and regional authorities in the implementation and management of territorial tools; calls for an effective implementation of the partnership principle and in-depth consultation with local authorities and stakeholders prior to the definition of ITI and CLLD actions;
Amendment 72 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Calls for territorial or local development strategies funded by more than one programme to merge into a single track in order to prevent delays and administrative obstacles; welcomes the possibility, introduced in the 2021-2027 programming period, to designate a leading fund for strategies funded by more than one fund;
Amendment 81 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Stresses the clear distinction between Member States that are committed to developing ITIs or CLLDs and those that are not; calls on the Commission to clarify this differentiation in order to avoid geographical disparities; takes the view that ITI and CLLD should be mandatory for Member States;
Amendment 85 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Considers TA2030 to be a real and proper instrument that ensures the EU’s cohesion through the management of each of its regions; notes that territorial instruments such as CLLDs and ITIs are proven measures that can bring Europe closer to citizens;
Amendment 91 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Stresses that TA2030 actions should be more decisive in the allocation of funds andplay a central role in Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes; points out the need to promote the integration of the TA2030 into EU policies, with a focus on levels of governance closer to the ground; calls on the Commission to provide the TA2030 with its ownadequate funding in the future revision of the multiannual financial framework to finance actions implementing the TA2030 both in urban and rural areas;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Underlines as essential the inclusion ofo apply Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) to analyse the potential asymmetric territorial impacts of EU policies and legislative proposals and to include TA2030 priorities and objectives in the legislative instruments and operational programmes of the cohesion policy funds which should be tailored to each territory and must respect the partnership principle; welcomes the TA2030 pilot actions that have been developed and calls on the Member States and the Commission to continue investing in these actions, improving their geographical balance and better coordinating them with the principles of the TA2030;
Amendment 97 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls for a strategy for mergingfacilitating synergies between different EU funds for projects implemented through territorial tools and for the administrative simplification for pilot actions financed by more than one fund;
Amendment 102 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Calls on the Member States to develop their territorial agendas in line with the TA2030 as a basis for programming their territorial strategies and in order to stimulate the decision-making process and the design of territorial and urban policies; further calls on Member States to enable a CLLD approach for all EU regions including rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition, regions which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as the northernmost regions and regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border regions and mountain regions;
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
15. Calls on the Member States and the Commission to promote the implementation of the TA2030 beyond pilot actions, making this instrument a reference framework for action that provides concrete guidelines for EU territories to improve their performance; highlights the opportunity to make regional funding conditional on achieving TA2030 prioritineed to include TA2030 priorities in Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes and calls on the Commission to develop monitoring indicators linking the TA2030 and the use of cohesion policy funds, in particular the ERFDF;
Amendment 115 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Calls for a single framework for strategies aimed at both urban and wider territorial development, treating territorial requirements as a whole by taking as a basis unit functional areas at level 3 of the nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS); stresses that this could significantly reduce bureaucratic barriers in the acquisition of fund; stresses that this could significantly reduce bureaucratic barriers in the acquisition of funds; believes that each territory should autonomously choose the appropriate level of local governance for the implementation of territorial strategies;
Amendment 116 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Underlines the need to simplify the access to funds identifying “one-stop shops” for potential beneficiaries of EU Cohesion funds and ITI or CLLD projects, in particular to access information about the type of financing, administrative requirements and eligibility;
Amendment 118 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 b (new)
Paragraph 18 b (new)
18b. Requests Member States to foresee sufficient human resources in both managing authorities and implementation bodies in charge of ITI or CLLD, in order to ensure technical support and advisory service specifically for LAGs and for ITI partners to enable compliance with the regulations;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 c (new)
Paragraph 18 c (new)
18c. Stresses that one of the main obstacles encountered by final beneficiaries of cohesion funds, especially for small-scale and local projects, is the delay in payments; encourages Member States to put in place a national scheme of cash advance for projects implemented through ITI and CLLD based on partnerships between managing authorities, public and private banks;
Amendment 122 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19 a (new)
Paragraph 19 a (new)
19a. Reiterates the need to strengthen the territorial dimension in the European Semester and improve the articulation between Cohesion Policy and the European economic governance, involving local and regional authorities at all stages of the procedures linked with the European Semester and its country specific recommendations;