The regionalisation of Ireland would not necessarily produce a higher overall take from EU structural funds, the Commissioner for Regional Affairs has told the Taoiseach.
According to a confidential note of their recent meeting in Cork on October 16th, which has been seen by The Irish Times, Ms Monika Wulf-Mathies said she could not answer Mr Ahern's question on the issue definitively. The question depended, she said, on whether Eurostat accepted that the Government's detailed proposals met its criteria for establishing regions in whole or part.
The note details a conversation that ranged widely over the whole Agenda 2000 discussions on the EU's next budget, and makes it clear Ireland will not join Cohesion countries Spain and Portugal in blocking progress on the timetable for reaching agreement by next March.
On the continuing assistance for the Northern peace process, the Taoiseach made clear his concern that a continuation of Objective One status for the North "would have very significant implications for the Border counties."
The note records: "The Commissioner agreed it was not desirable for different funding levels to apply in Northern Ireland and the Border counties, particularly in view of North/South bodies."
However, while the Commissioner said she would listen to the Northern case, "she did not see Objective One status for Northern Ireland as a possibility", the note says. To grant it that status "would open the floodgates" of other claims for special treatment, she argued. "Other means, like Interreg, would have to be found to support the peace process."
Ms Wulf-Mathies warned regionalisation should not be undertaken simply for funding reasons but should take account of the broader strategic needs of the country and particularly of disadvantaged areas.
She believed the debate in Ireland was "a healthy one which was not focused on funding but on broader issues, including that of greater involvement by the regions in the planning process."
The Taoiseach acknowledged regions had in the past not been allowed sufficient input into national plans. "This would have to change," he said.
Responding to the Taoiseach's questions about the budget period after 2006, the Commissioner also warned there was no guarantee there would be a transition status for regions then losing their Objective One status. "Enlargement would have commenced at that stage," the note quotes her as telling Mr Ahern, "which would lower the average GDP level of the EU."
"Between 2000-2006 15 per cent of structural funds would be channelled to eastern Europe in the form of pre-accession aid and from 2006 on, this would rise to 30 per cent for the new and incoming member-states. These factors make it very difficult to see what, if any, transition arrangements would apply in 2006."
The note then records the Taoiseach and Commissioner agreed that they would not issue a written press release and would tell the press simply that "the discussions centred on broad Agenda 2000 issues . . ."
Meanwhile, at the discussion on Agenda 2000 at the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers yesterday, broad support was given to a key reform of the Commission's competition policy guidelines which will bring them into line with structural fund rules. Maps of deprived areas allowed higher levels of state subsidies to companies will now correspond broadly with Objective One maps.
