CIVGOV Structural Regionalism Sector Report

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CIVGOVStructural RegionalismSector Report

• Simona Piattoni, University of Trento (Italy)

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Policy history

• European Regional Development Policy (ERDP) or,
  simply, structural policy was
• inaugurated in 1975 (neither very European, nor
  very regional)
• reformed in 1989
• subsidiarity
• additionality
• integration
• programming
• partnership
• about to be reformed in 2006

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Partnership

• Partnership is the basis for the involvement of
  civil society in structural policy
• Regulation 1988/2052 (art. 4) defines
  partnerships as close consultation between the
  Commission, the Member State concerned and the
  competent authorities designated by the latter at
  national, regional, local or other level, with
  each party acting as a partner in pursuit of a
  common goal
• Regulation 1993/2081 (art. 4.1) adds to the
  consultation economic and social actors
  identified within the framework of each Member
  States national rules and current practices.
  Partnership should be conducted in full
  compliance with the respective institutional,
  legal and financial powers of each of the
  partners
• Regulation 1999/1260 (art. 8.1) extends the
  principle of partnership to all the relevant
  bodies, according to national rules and practice,
  taking account of the need to promote equality
  between men and women and sustainable development
  through the integration of environmental
  protection and improvement requirements.

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Nature of Public Opinion

• Structural policy does not elicit much public
  interest and most people are ignorant of what it
  is and what it does for them. Opinions are
  confused and somewhat contradictory. A
  Eurobarometer Survey in 1995 (The Regions
  Eurobarometer 43.1bis) showed the following data
• most people in Europe ignore the existence of the
  Structural Funds (only 18 of people know of its
  existence in Italy, 18 in France, 22 in the
  Netherlands, 23 in Sweden) awareness is higher
  in Cohesion countries (ranging from 54 in
  Portugal to 23 in Greece)
• people strongly believe that regions should be
  involved in EU matters, particularly in southern
  Europe (89 in Portugal, 87 in Spain, 85 in
  France and 81 in Italy), but at the same time
  they are ignorant of the Committee of the
  Regions, while wanting to devolve more powers to
  it
• 50 of the people believe that structural policy
  should continue also after enlargement, but with
  stricter criteria 27 believe that nothing
  should change 7 is opposed to the idea of
  extending structural policy to enlargement
  countries.

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Significance of policy sector and political
opportunity structure

• The main difference in the significance of
  structural policy across countries are due to
• the amount of funds received and their visibility
  (highest in cohesion countries and enlargement
  countries)
• the institutional structure of the state, whether
  federal, regional or unitary (highest in regional
  and federal states)
• the divisiveness of structural issues in the
  country (highest in countries with large and
  visible structural gaps)

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Nature and Structure of SMOs/MACs

• The interests involved in structural policy are
  of rather different types, expectedly with
  different types of membership, leadership and
  styles of action
• public (regional and local) institutions of
  either administrative or elective nature
• private-public institutions (Chambers of
  Commerce, development councils, research
  institutions, etc.)
• functional groups (trade unions, employers
  associations, small and medium enterprises, etc.)
• sectoral groups (agricultural, industrial,
  tourism, etc.)
• cultural associations (for the protection of
  productive traditions, of typical products, of
  the landscape, etc.)
• political parties (particularly where
  subsidiarity is a highly contentious issue)
• issue specific movements (environment, gender
  equality, social exclusion, etc.)
• Parties are most prominent in Spain and the UK
  functional groups are paramount in Germany and
  Sweden Chambers of Commerce and cultural
  associations are central in France and Poland
  issue specific movements are characteristic of
  Greece development councils can be found in
  Hungary, Spain and the UK regional and local
  institutions are most prominent in Italy and
  Germany.

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Issues and Campaigns

• Structural policy gets often entangled with other
  issues
• the degree of regional autonomy, so much so as to
  become a testing ground for the redefinition of
  centre-periphery relations and partisan
  mobilization
• the protection of the environment, the
  preservation of traditional productions, etc.
• the creation/absorption of areas of social
  exclusion (marginalized workers, ethnic
  division of labour, etc.)
• cross-regional cooperation and the challenges to
  current governance structures that it entails

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Public opinion identification with SMOs/MACs

• There is agreement among SMOs and institutional
  actors alike that, in structural regional
  matters, public institutions, particularly if
  elective, are the more genuine representatives of
  the general interest of the regional citizenry.
  Public institutions, thus, are Janus-faced being
  both civil society representatives and public
  enforcers.
• SMOs and MACs admit to represent only very
  specific, although important, issues and to be
  special-purpose organizations. Neither do they
  claim to represent large sections of the populace
  (but rather ideas and values which are spread in
  the population to an unknown degree) nor do they
  really attempt to explain, educate and raise the
  consciousness of the population on structural
  issues (some exceptions can be noted in Hungary,
  France). At most they keep their membership
  informed and the try to represent their
  functional, sectoral or issue-specific
  values/ideas/interests.
• People are not very interested in structural
  policy and SMOs are not very interested in
  mobilizing them.

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Strategies of SMOs/MACs

• informal, personal relations are very often used
  sometimes instead of sometimes next to more
  official actions
• mass rallies and disruption of public life are
  used sparingly only to draw the authorities
  attention to critical matters (e.g., the
  Association of Mining Communes in Poland staged a
  mass demonstration or the Sami mobilized in
  unconventional ways to draw attention to the Sami
  situation
• educational and sensitization campaigns are also
  rare, but do take place particularly through the
  media and political parties
• petitions and judicial actions are sometimes used
  with mixed effects
• lobbying is more used, particularly during
  electoral campaigns or at crucial reform points
• lending of expert advice occurs seldom, mostly
  because it is very difficult for SMOs to have
  experts on structural policy, who can competently
  express their views on very technical matters
• participation in formal decision-making is used
  by all whenever possible and meaningful the
  problem is that it is often not particularly
  meaningful.

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Openness/responsiveness of political opportunity
structure

• The political opportunity structure (POS) and the
  structure and level of institutional contact is
  determined by a number of features
• the institutional structure of the state (whether
  federal, regional or unitary)
• the domestic tradition in state-society
  concertation (although sometimes with
  surprisingly opposite effects), which sometimes
  may even vary from region to region
• the particular rules which govern partnership in
  Monitoring Committees rules about who should
  participate, whether or not they can vote, how
  votes should be cast, how early/late documents
  are shared, whether the opinions of SMOs must or
  must not be taken into account, how they should
  be produced, etc. determine the degree of
  openness of the POS
• the particular political philosophy regarding who
  is the rightful representative of civil society
  whether SMOs or institutional actors and where
  the initiative should come from whether from
  the bottom or from the top
• the ideological leanings of the parties currently
  in government at the national and the regional
  level

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Common understanding among SMOs/MACs and with
institutional actors

• In the field of structural policy SMOs often work
  at cross purposes, as each focuses on one aspect
  of structural development. Excessive cluttering
  of SMOs in the same decision-making space may
  further exacerbate differences.
• Private-public alliances are more likely and do
  occur at the regional level, sometimes formally,
  sometimes informally.

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Alliances and networks at the EU level

• Alliances among SMOs are more likely at the EU
  level, particularly when cross-regional issues
  are being decided. At the EU level, alliances are
  often formed between regional representatives,
  MEPs and E-SMOs.
• Alliances among institutional actors at the EU
  level tend to occur within the institutions
  predisposed to this end most notably the CoR
  or among regions which belong to umbrella
  associations even though these latter are often
  more a façade than real coordinating organisms.

13
Europeanization of policy sector and of civil
society involvement

• Opinions diverge here, as some believe that
  structural policy is already fully Europeanized
  (goals, procedures, institutions, discourses).
  Others believe that domestic patterns of
  interactions are still predominant. Others still
  are on a mission to further Europeanization.
• Civil society involvement is generally considered
  still too slight, but inevitably so given the
  nature of the policy area, the mis-match between
  the regional character of the policy and the
  sectoral or single-issue nature of SMOs.
• Civil society governance patterns in structural
  policy still differ from country to country but
  are everywhere severely limited by the highly
  technical nature of the issue and the inherent
  mismatch between the level at which this policy
  is crafted and implemented and SMOs are active.
• Expressions of civil society be they public or
  private or public-private carry out activities
  at the regional, national and EU level
  structural policy is truly multi-level. There is
  a danger of capture of SMOs on the part of
  European institutions, particularly when SMOs
  receive most of the funds from the EU and their
  activity in Brussels tends to boil down to asking
  for more funds.
• Regional institutions emerge as one of the most
  important channels for civil society
  participation in this policy sector.

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Conclusions on civil society governance
relationship

• The mismatch between the levels at which civil
  society actors are best structured (which could
  be either national or local or both) and the
  level ay which they are requested to act (the
  regional level)
• The lack of civil societys interest in regional
  development issues and, therefore, problems with
  gathering and processing the information,
  difficulties with developing real expertise, and
  frustration with the incapacity to make a real
  contribution
• The above problems, which can be found also in
  governance systems where sub-national
  institutional and non-institutional actors are
  actively included into the decision-making
  process, are understandably bigger when the
  governance system is only formally implemented
  while their marginalization is actively pursued
  in a number of more of less subtle ways
• This may happen because neither governmental
  institutions nor, perhaps, the civil society
  organizations themselves feel completely
  legitimated to take part in a decision-making
  process of which they know so little and about
  which they care, in the end, so little
• Nevertheless, all SMOs feel that the best way to
  have an impact on structural developmental issues
  is to play according to the rules of the game,
  which means preferring provision of expert
  knowledge, submission of petitions, lobbying
  activities, media campaigns and participation in
  decision-making forums rather than direct action.

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Prospects for the future

• Two tidal movements are currently meeting, thus
  creating a turbulence which is difficult to
  interpret.
• On the one hand, twenty years of reformed
  Structural Funds have inculcated the principles
  of programming, monitoring, evaluation and
  partnership across national and regional
  governments. Governments have accepted, albeit
  reluctantly, the need to interact with civil
  society organizations and social partners in
  order to draft, implement, monitor and evaluate
  structural programs. Moreover, they have learnt
  to relay these same concerns at the EU level, in
  a host of arenas from the Council to the
  Commission, from the Parliament to the CoR.
• On the other hand, although regional
  participation in structural policy has been the
  wedge which the Commission has driven into the
  paralysed front of national cross-vetoes, the
  season of a Europe of the Regions now appears
  to be over, if only for the sheer difficulty of
  dealing with the some 500 regions of the enlarged
  (EU-25) Union.
• Civil society organizations feel this turbulence
  and do not know whether they should stick to
  tried systems of interest intermediation
  particularly in countries such as Sweden and
  Germany where these systems are particularly
  well-oiled or they should expend time, funds and
  energies in playing the European game at the EU
  level, where they are not yet comfortable.

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Policy recommendations

• Greater efforts should be spent on informing the
  citizens of what structural policy, and the EU
  more generally, do for them so as to create an
  informed public.
• Active solicitation of civil society involvement
  in structural issues should be encouraged by
  regional institutions.
• Participation rules within Monitoring Committees
  should be made more uniform and more civil
  society friendly so that SMOs do not just sit
  there so as to legitimize them, but are truly
  given a chance to contribute their input.
• Once regional public-private alliances are forged
  at the regional level, regional institutions can
  then take regional issues onto the EU level truly
  reflecting also civil society views.
• The CoR is the institutional place where regional
  interests can be expressed and brought to bear
  onto EU policy-making. A transformation of this
  institution into a genuine regional Chamber is in
  order if regional interests are to be taken
  seriously.
• The Constitutional Treaty gives greater relevance
  to this institution, but further steps will have
  to be made if regional interests have to be fully
  mobilized in favour of the construction of a more
  fully participated Europe.