 This is the beginning of the second day of our plenary and we start today with our very interesting high-level debate on Cohesion and Implementation with Elisa Ferreira, the Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms and Eliana Pavlova, the Vice President of the European Investment Bank. But before we resume our work I want to inform you that there will be two voting sessions of opinions and amendments today. The first one is scheduled from 11.40 to 11.55 Brussels time and the second one from 4.50 to 5.35 pm Brussels time. Please ensure that you are connected for these times and ready to vote by then. So we start our day as I said with this high-level debate and I have the pleasure to welcome with us for this debate, Elisa Ferreira, Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms and Eliana Pavlova, the Vice President of the European Investment Bank. Thank you both for accepting our invitation and I would say that dear Commissioner, dear Vice President, dear colleagues, it is a real pleasure to have you with us today. Once again the health situation forces us to meet online. Nonetheless our willingness and capacity to cooperate not only are stronger than this pandemic but have been even intensified by the awareness of the difficulties on the ground in our regions and our cities. We share the huge responsibility of turning the financial resources made available by the EU budget into concrete projects and actions that will make our citizens feel more protected and better connected. Now these investments are not simple figures on our dashboards. Every community must be able to benefit from and contribute to an EU-wide mobilization aimed at securing an inclusive recovery, shared prosperity and sustainability. By 2023 we must complete the 2014-2020 Cohesion Policy Programs and by the next few months we will need to launch the 2021-2027 investment plans. So we have two tasks ahead of us and we must succeed on these two fronts, securing an efficient coordination with the recovery and resilience facility to which regions and cities are contributing in a decisive manner. Now the European Committee of the Regions, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank are indeed determined to face these challenges working side by side, stepping up efforts to support fund managers on the ground, monitor the situation and remove obstacles to an impactful implementation of investments. Europe's regions, cities and villages have already started their transition to a greener and a digitalized future. The implementation and the timely delivery of Cohesion Policy for 2021-2027 in the spirit of GERRIN partnership and in synergy with other instruments will be decisive to ensure that such transitions will be inclusive, fair and of course successful. The joint action plan that we have signed with Commissioner Ferreira two days ago and I wish to warmly thank her for her commitment and closeness goes exactly in this direction, strengthening cooperation to seize together the historic opportunity of a balanced recovery. Now these same priorities are shaping our excellent cooperation with the EIB, aimed at facilitating the access to funding opportunities by regional and local authorities and I really want to thank Vice President Pavlova for her participation today and for helping us to better understand the European Investment Bank's approach to the new Cohesion Programming phase. Finally, I wish to thank the representatives of the Partner Association in the Cohesion Alliance. Our joint efforts contributed to secure a strong Cohesion Policy over the next decade and we will keep working together to make sure that Cohesion values and multi-level governance remain the engine of all EU's development policies and that decision makers at all levels are aware of Cohesion Policy's key role in tackling the future challenges of our union. Now this plenary debate opens in the best possible way our 2022 joint work on Cohesion Policy. The summit organized by the Committee of Regions and the French Presidency of the EU in Marseille in March, as well as the Cohesion Forum promoted by the European Commission will definitely provide two further and outstanding opportunities in order to take stock if you want of the implementation of this crucial policy on the ground as well as of its contribution to finally relaunching successfully our Europe. So dear Commissioner, dear Lisa, the floor is yours. Commissioner Ferreira, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, dear President Tsikostas, dear Apostolos, dear Vice President Pavlova, dear Liliana, honorable members, dear colleagues, as you know and as you just mentioned we have been working very hard together but very professionally and very efficiently and as you also know in early February we will publish the eighth Cohesion Report on the State of Europe's Regions and Cities. This report analyzes Cohesion Policy's contribution to convergence over the last decades. I also analyze it also analyzes our contribution during the crisis and I recall that during the crisis Cohesion Policy was in certain member states it represented more than half of total public investment and it analyzes also the contribution of Cohesion Policy to the long-term recovery. So not only in the crisis but as a long-term instrument that's what it is also including a green transition that has got to cover all regions and to actually avoid also a digital divide and that's a risk. It is clear as you just said it, it is clear that Europe needs Cohesion Policy and on top of it or at the core of it the effective implementation of this Cohesion Policy. We need Cohesion as a value of European construction. We need Cohesion also as an enabler of the recovery and of these twin transitions the green and the digital and we need Cohesion also as a leveler to guarantee that we keep moving forward but that we do it together. So thank you very much sincerely for this timely discussion on the implementation of Cohesion especially as we are looking to finish the old programs and start the new and this is quite a challenge. Trying to streamline my thinking I will make basically three points. In the first one I will outline the state of play of the old 2014 programs sometimes we tend to forget them. Second I will review very in a very synthetic way the progress on the new 2021 programs and future oriented and third I will outline our common work as commission and committee of the regions the work to tackle the challenges in both periods and late gathered foundations for success. So in relation to the implementation of the 2014 programs we can say that it is progressing well given also the unprecedented circumstances we had to face so far and the the figures I'm sharing with you relate to 13th of January so a couple of days ago the commission has paid out 253 billion euros and this equals to 62 percent of the planned funds. These figures include ReactU which as you all know was the first instrument to be financed by next generation EU by the new borrowing and the first use of this money was in fact in ReactU in reinforcing the previous Cohesion funds. Commission has already approved 99.3 percent of the 2021 trench of this instrument of ReactU and we have already approved 20 program amendments for the 2022 trench for the next trench. We expect to adopt all the necessary amendments in the first half of 2022 so of this year so until June we hope to have all the the amendments approved. We in commission have spared in fact no efforts to ensure the fastest possible reaction to the crisis and as you know we have been speedy since the beginning being among in fact the first responders to the crisis and we are determined to see this through to the very end to keep the same energy and same capacity to respond. In fact we recognize that extraordinary efforts will be required in 2022 and 2023 to invest on one hand remaining 38 percent of the programs what remains from 2014-2020 and consequently avoid the cutoff. Cohesion investment is in fact and we all know it desperately needed and we must avoid any loss and it will be a particular challenge to deliver these investments at the same time and we are very much aware of this as recovery and resilience investments and on the other hand the preparation of the new Cohesion programs. The unprecedented amount of funding is in fact a great opportunity but also a great responsibility to make the European Union investments that bring to make these investments bring real value and positive change on the ground. This is also the time to show Cohesion policy as a driver of a convergence that includes modernization that supports the green and the digital transitions and social progress. So this is in a nutshell the state of the art of the past funds now looking at the future and in particular at the what I called my second point progress in preparing the new period. Since the legislative package in 2018 the commission has been cooperating intensively with member states to prepare the new period. In fact 23 percent of investment for growth and jobs programs have already been submitted. Here I'm talking about number of programs so 66 out of 293 delays were understandable in the crisis of 2020 even prolonged in 2021 but now it is time it is time to get the new programs up and running. In fact all programs must be adopted during this year of 2022 because the 2021 allocation will be split in the following years but the 2022 allocation will be lost if it is not used so I call your attention on this. I can only urge the member states that have not yet done so to submit their programs as soon as possible however I have also been clear in saying that speed cannot replace substance so also from our side we are taking some time to discuss the details of these programs as they will shape our common future and the future of our regions for a decade so it's a long-term strategic view that we need. In fact you know the challenges the challenge of delivering a green and digital transition which in fact brings everybody together and in practice leaves no reason behind. The challenge of maximizing synergies and coordination between the different instruments in particular with the new recovery and resilience facility and the challenge of protecting specific areas such as our rural areas and other regions in transition for instance like the just transition fund areas and this is why we must get it quickly but we must get it right. The committee of the regions is the first European institution to adopt its opinion on the long-term vision for Europe's rural areas and I thank you all of you for the timeliness, quality and seriousness of the work you have done. The vision provides an ambitious yet very realistic view of how we want our rural areas to look in 2040 and how to work with local authorities, local people to deliver this and with this I go into my third point and the inclusion policy and in many development policy local partners are the secret ingredient that they are the key of success they are the true success factor. So it is absolutely crucial and I call your engagement on this to involve the relevant local partners and to build to help them to build their own capacity earlier this week and you just mentioned it President Sitsi Kostas together with President Sitsi Kostas and co-chair Ms Sahab Ezolez we launched what we call the joint action plan between this committee and the commission we have set five priority areas including the monitoring of the application of the partnership principle and ensuring effective engagement of local and regional authorities in the new programs we know that partnership must be announced and there is a lot of variance between member states for this reason we in the commission have recently launched the European community of practice on partnership exactly to exchange best practices to discuss the functioning of the code of conduct and to prepare the ground for the update of the code before the next programming period and for this we need your contribution your suggestions and your balance on how things have worked and what we need to improve. I and my services take the partnership principle very very seriously we will keep monitoring to ensure that partners are included and that they benefit to the full from the new provisions and resources to build their capacity we are also concerned to promote partnership and involvement of regional and local authorities in the new recovery and resilience facility annual stakeholder events are proposed for each member state a platform to gather feedback and to exchange views on implementation of key reforms and of investments I urge you all to be proactive in these forums or for promoting the best possible interplay between cohesion policy and the rrf let me just note detail that is not a detail the technical support instrument it is really a powerful instrument a powerful tool to help build better public administrations implement growth enhancing reforms and make the most of investments including cohesion policy and the rrf this instrument is available to national but also to regional and local administrations and no administration is alone in making reforms if you want to do it and you need technical support we are here to help of course with limited means but we have been able to answer I mean to requests from all member states and this is quite an important tool in terms of quality dear colleagues I'd like to close by remembering our mission whatever the challenge whatever the change from green transition to digital revolution from demographic changes to division for rural areas cohesion policy is there to ensure that all regions benefit fully and in fact that we don't split Europe in regions that progress and grow and regions that decline or remain for decades in a stagnant kind of situation so it is crucial first to redouble our efforts to invest the final trenches and to invest them right of the 2014 program so that none of the investment is lost second to accelerate the preparation of the 2021 programs third to build solid partnerships and through capacity building solid engaged competent partners this is our joint work I work not just of democratic accountability but of policy effect effectiveness and this is in fact our joint action plan this is what we signed this week and this will be our common task for the coming years to reinforce cohesion as a basic principle of European Union in our common European house as an enabler of the future we want to build and as a leveler to make sure that all citizens wherever they were born will share this very very positive journey thank you and I look forward to our discussion today thank you once again thank you very very much commissioner it's been a pleasure to see you again today and I really want to underline the importance of this very good collaboration but we have together the committee of regions and their commission and especially with you and the way that we have been moving things forward especially during these very very difficult times so thank you again very much and I would like to give the floor now to the vice president of the eib miss pablova the floor is yours thank you very much a good morning dear president cc costas dear apostles the commissioner ferrera dear elisa honorable members of the european committee of the regions ladies and gentlemen colleagues it is really a real pleasure for me and honor to participate in today's high-level debate on cohesion implementation unfortunately only the virtual this time but i'm really hopeful that we will be able to meet soon in person we at the european investment bank at the european investment bank group really value your institution as as a constant and as a close ally of supporting together cohesion objectives on local and regional level and we are always ready and delighted to to contribute to your debates with our pan european expertise of financial markets and successful project delivery as well as our technical and advisory support the current economic recovery situation is indeed difficult as your background paper for this session right sleep point out so too we also see the scissors effect of combined falling revenues and rising expenditures throughout europe although you have tried significantly to to damper this effect with unprecedented amount of ground and loan resources provided as already commissioner ferrera mentioned from next generation you and in addition to to the traditional budget of cohesion policy funds unfortunately still we see that there is a significant funding gap which remains in the investment budget of many local and regional authorities even in some national authorities as well so against this backstop in the new cohesion orientation paper of the european investment bank which is which i believe is particularly relevant and this was the aim of of developing this very specific dedicated strategic document of the bank which was approved recently by our board is really to serve as our new guidance on how to achieve even more cohesion and how to provide even more targeted and tailor made support for our partners for regional and local authorities for national authorities as well for all our stakeholders for our financing for our mandate management and financial instruments as well as with our advisory support in the previous programming period till 2020 we have done a lot in supporting achieving cohesion policy goals i take a note of commission of error and note that we mentioned that last effort now is needed to successfully complete and finalize the implementation of the the the previous programming period projects and programs where we have provided our support for co-financing advisory and financial instruments and i had i could say here that as you remember we promised and we delivered on this promise in devoting even more of our overall annual financing to cohesion volumes so and we reached 30 percent of our overall lending to be dedicated in the in support of cohesion regions in the last five years the the bank provided more than 90 billion 90.8 billion euro in project supporting cohesion in in the regions last year alone the amount of our investments and operations signed within our cohesion priority objective is is almost 20 billion 19.8 billion euro which is equivalent of more than 40 percent of our lending and operations in EU so we believe that through this increased support we we really provided the the much much needed financing to boost the economies of of cohesion countries in the short run the level of GDP in cohesion regions is estimated to be 2 percent higher than in the counterfactual situation without us supporting the operations and projects even after 20 years regional GDP in cohesion regions is estimated to be still 0.9 percent higher without eab support supporting and co-financing operations this means that our financing can make a real difference however our financing unfortunately is not unlimited for this reason we have in our drafting process of of the cohesion orientation paper thought very hard about what are the priorities for 2021-27 how to to streamline these priorities in support of the overall EU objectives and cohesion policy and we discussed this our drug paper our priorities with all our institutional partners with DG region European Commission with the parliament and of course with EU committee of the region our very important partner in this process and as you remember the main question was where we should focus more our financing can support in the future and the answer is simple and compelling at the same time we have to concentrate our efforts and where we can make the biggest difference and where we can provide the largest added value and it seems like it was also the result of the of the debate we had with you that we have to focus more on less developed regions as obvious less developed regions have more needs and they have really further to go to to reach the the living conditions and the the basic infrastructure levels to the average of the EU so as your investment bank we we try to support them on the path to convergence for these we've been working to understand better regional needs for investments as well as for for technical and advisory support drawing on our unique experience on one side but also drawing on the results of our recent two economic service by our economic team service analyzing the the needs and the requests of corporates and with a special focus on European municipalities local and regional authorities and our analysis is showing that the investment and the technical capacity gaps remain considerable it's an awful an awful limiting opportunities of companies of businesses and of people in less developed regions so we now understand that how better how investment needs and gaps can be addressed and this this varies across the regions and therefore we need to do more so as a consequence we have created a new additional a new target of our financing so which which is now covering specifically less developed regions so far it was approximately 20 percent and now we will be gradually increasing this lending and this reaching the target of 23 percent of our financing to be dedicated to less developed regions of course at the same time we won't neglect transition regions with their specific needs because otherwise they could too fall into the middle income trap and become less developed regions of tomorrow thus we also raised our overall ambition for cohesion financing across both transition and less developed region so far it was 30 percent already last year we reached 40 percent increase and our ambition is to to increase our cohesion lending to reach 45 percent of our overall lending by 2025 for us this is ambitious but at the same time I believe it's a very realistic goal so now our new cohesion orientation paper sets also not only quantitative quantity but also qualitative targets we will we will do more for greener cohesion project this is one of the very important targets because supporting cohesion objectives and climate goals it should go hand in hand and for us it's not only possible but it is really indispensable if we want to achieve and to support the transition to to a better a cleaner future across you therefore it's even not a restriction but we feel that cohesion the cohesion regions and our cohesion target could be reinforcing each other with the other transversal objective of eib as a climate bank which is also reaching our increasing our climate related investments by 2025 to reach 50 percent of our lending of course with special focus and special attention ensuring and supporting just and fair transition of regions another important element of our of our strategy and our specific targets is of course to support and to facilitate innovation innovation investments with special focus on in less developed regions because we want to help to disseminate modern technologies and innovation in less developed regions and this is this means that especially mid-sized companies could count on our support in deploying proven technologies some kind of diffusion of proven technologies to be to be deployed in regions in countries in countries for a first time so in order that of course provided that that investment creates local economics billovers which is a very important and of course hopefully as well environmental co-benefits we will also make it easier for medium-sized companies since they are actually the backbone of the of the european and local economy in the regions to access our financing so now from now on so far we will providing their support for a medium-sized companies only through our intermediated lending through our financial intermediaries from now on the medium-sized companies will be able to to to reach and to to be supported with direct direct support and lending so now we will be providing these the special support direct support to SMEs and mid-cups with special with special attention to mid-sized companies in less developed regions which will benefit of our direct financing in the in the scale of of the threshold of up to 100 million your investment projects we will also increase further our support in making an efficient and policy-driven use of of EU funds and the resources through our so-called mandate management for meaning financial deployment and the establishing of financial instruments both by the bank and by our subsidiary the european investment fund in setting up and implement implementing bilateral financial instruments on behalf of the member states and regions in supporting the the private sector and attracting more private financing as well and last but not least we will increase our advisory offer for cohesion regions because we see that successful projects can only be realized where the needed capacity and technical knowledge is present building on our well-established technical advisory services like jasper's elena and our country specific project advisory support teams so-called pasta teams in the regions and with additional support in visage now in the new invest EU advisory hub we we plan to intensify our efforts and our support to improve the project preparation because it's critical for the successful implementation of all funds available and to support the local authorities in strengthening their administrative capacity of course we will provide additional financial advisory support to help to design and to implement financial instruments and different investment platforms centrally but also in the regions we have noted well your plea in the background paper for this debate that financial instruments should be made simpler and should be aligned with the economic conditions of the of the relevant market something which we can of course fully agree with and which we are trying really to do and to improve also through the support of our advisory support packages like icon pass we believe that the new legislative framework for the period till 27 of course should help us even more having simpler and clear legislation will enable us really when establishing financial instrument and exploring new possibilities and for example a good example here is now we have the opportunity of better combination of grants and loan so ladies and gentlemen when you look in all these features of our new eab group cohesion orientation paper you can see that we have tried and we have now committed ourselves to strengthen substantially our cohesion mission a mission which has always