How do citizens perceive the impact of the Cohesion Policy on their everyday lives? What can we do to involve them further in the implementation and in designing the future of the Policy?
Those were the main questions of the event “Cohesion is us - What citizens think about Cohesion?- the example of Cyprus” organized in Brussels by the Hadjihambis Foundation, a not-for-profit establishment in Cyprus focusing on issues of local and regional development, culture, and education.
The event highlighted the example of Cyprus, a small island country on the periphery of the EU, and showcased how the Cohesion Policy supports remote areas, by increasing social cohesion and European integration. It was organized in the framework of the project “Cohesion is us” that is co-funded by the European Commission.
The President of the Foundation, Ms Chrystalla Hadjihambi, welcomed the participants at the opening of the event and then Christina Neocleous, member of the Foundation presented the foundation and the legacy of Panicos Hadjihambis. She then focused on the results of the events organized in Cyprus in the framework of the project in Nicosia, Limassol and Paphos. In all those three events speakers were high level politicians like the Vice President of the EIB, Kyriakos Kakouris, Mayors of Nicosia, Paphos, Limassol and Srovolos, Members of the European Parliament and members of the administration responsible for cohesion policy in Cyprus. This gave the opportunity to participants not only to learn about the Cohesion, but also to exchange on the implementation and the future of the policy.
Τhe Mayor of Kourion, Pantelis Georgiou, who traveled in Brussels for the event, presented his experiences after 8 years as mayor concluding that “Cohesion Policy Funds can and have helped the local government develop significant infrastructure for the benefit of the general public”. “It is a policy that needs to be strengthen even more”, said Mr Georgiou, “so as to give the chance to more local authorities to access funds for projects that tackle the arising problems of the era”.
Andreas Pafitis, journalist for the TV station Omega TV, also shared his experience of working one year for the project. Andreas noted that journalists were impressed to find out that actually the programs receiving funding from the cohesion policy fund were dealing with every-day problems and actually maybe even more than half, were handled anyway in the context of news but without making the connection with the EU funding. The journalists who dealt with cohesion policy recognised its importance immediately and through reports, radio spots and publications they tried to convey it to the citizens as well.
From Cyprus to Europe with Francesco Molica, Economic and policy analyst at Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, who presented his thoughts on the implementation and the future of Cohesion Policy based on resent research he conducted for the JRC. According to Mr Molica Cohesion policy investments in infrastructure lead to more support for the European Union than others, “perhaps because supporting an infrastructure is a more visible and tangible result of what the European Union does”. Regarding the implementation Mr. Molica noted that governance of the programmes is extremely different from country to country -even for member states who share similar characteristics like for example Greece and Austria. But the answer of which option is best to follow does not have an easy answer. For example he said centrally managed programmes tend to perform better in terms of absorption but regional programmes tend to reach the objectives set by themselves easier.
Maria del Carmen Barrera Charmorro, Vice President of the Workers Group of the EESC presented the ideas and positions of the EESC for the future of Cohesion Policy. Ms Barrera Charmorro emphasised the need to make cohesion policy “more diversified and flexible in order to be able to pay more attention to people, especially the most vulnerable, and to better address the inequality of opportunities that many face”. And this approach can only be achieved with the involvement of social partners and civil society organisations at all levels in the Member States. She also pointed the need for Cohesion Policy to continue protecting Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, supporting categories of people with the lowest employment rates and reinforce digital investments. And to achieve all this “the overall multiannual financial framework (MFF) budget should be more ambitious and to ensure adequate funding for the cohesion policy”.
Finally the moderator of the event, Nikos Lampropoulos, presented the findings of a public opinion research that was held in Cyprus on the perception and the understanding of the citizens about Cohesion Policy. According to those findings 50% of the Cypriots have never heard anything about Cohesion Policy with men been slightly more aware (45,1%) than women (40,6%). On the positive side, of those that do have some awareness on Cohesion 24.4% believes that it is a policy aiming to reduce regional disparities, where another 18,5% believes that Cohesion supports welfare state in Europe. Cypriots seem to have difficulties in identifying specific projects funded from Cohesion and they ask for more information on EU policies and funds -mainly on the web and TV.
The event closed with a round table discussion where journalists, representatives of regional offices in Brussels and other participants expressed their views and experiences from the implementation of Cohesion policy funded projects in their countries and all expressed their support to the Policy and the need to be maintained and strengthened in the future with simpler and more specific rules.
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