Czech Business Today

The EESC welcomes the Commission’s Communication on the 8^th Cohesion Report: Cohesion in Europe towards 2050. The report is a great source of information on the efforts undertaken towards economic, social and territorial cohesion and the problems associated with achieving cohesion. The new document is all the more important in that more than four years have passed since the previous (7^th) report.

The 8^th Cohesion Report published by the Commission shows that Cohesion policy has helped to narrow territorial and social disparities between regions in the EU. Thanks to Cohesion funding, the GDP per capita of less developed regions is expected to increase by up to 5% by 2023. The same investments also supported a 3.5% reduction in the gap between the GDP per capita of the 10% least developed regions and the 10% most developed regions.

The report also shows that, thanks to its flexibility, Cohesion policy provided much needed and very swift support to Member States, regional and local authorities in the midst of economic slowdowns and the worst crisis of recent times.

Cohesion policy became a more important source of investment. Cohesion funding grew from the equivalent of 34% to 52% of total public investment from the 2007-2013 programming period to the 2014-2020 programming period.

Since 2001, less developed regions in Eastern Europe have been catching up with the rest of the EU. At the same time however, many middle-income and less developed regions, especially in the southern and south-western EU, have suffered from economic stagnation or decline.

The report stresses that the pandemic has led to the greatest recession since 1945, particularly in sectors that rely on personal interaction (such as tourism), and has drastically changed the nature of work, education and social life, as well as the situation in border regions. Overall, the pandemic has had a greater negative impact in less developed regions, which slowed down the pace of convergence.

Convergence between Member States has accelerated, but internal regional disparities within the fast-growing Member States have increased. Employment has been growing, but regional disparities remain larger than before 2008. The number of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion fell by 17 million between 2012 and 2019.

There are also challenges with the Cohesion policy, such as the fact, that the regional innovation divide in Europe has grown, due to a lack of investment in R&D and weaknesses in innovation ecosystems of the least developed regions or that the EU population is ageing and will start shrinking in the years to come. In 2020, 34% of the EU population lived in a shrinking region. This is projected to reach 51% in 2040.

David Sventek, EESC Member of Employers´ Group