HC Deb 06 July 1993 vol 228 cc105-6W
Mr. Kynoch

To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will make a statement on issues discussed and decisions taken at the meeting of the European Community's Foreign Affairs Council on 2 July.

Mr. Sainsbury

I attended a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on 2 and 3 July. Subject to a reservation by the Irish Republic, which at present remains outstanding, the Council reached conclusions on the regulations on the future of the European structural funds. The Council also heard a report by the Commission on the state of play in the GATT Uruguay round.

Subject to the Irish reservation, the outcome on the structural funds was as follows. It is fully satisfactory for the United Kingdom.

  1. 1. The Objective 1 regions, which receive the highest grants, will include Northern Ireland, Merseyside and the whole of the Highlands and Islands Enterprise area, including the Argyll, Bute and West Moray areas, which the European Commission had proposed to omit.
  2. 2. The clear priority of the European Social Fund will remain Objective 3, training for the unemployed, particularly the long-term unemployed and young people. Expenditure on this will be at least four times greater than expenditure on Objective 4, for training people affected by industrial change, particularly those threatened with unemployment. Moreover the majority of expenditure on Objective 4 will be for people employed in small and medium-sized enterprises.
  3. 3. The introduction of future Community Initiatives, which will be limited to 9 per cent. of the total of the Funds, will be subject to control by a new management committee of Member States. Maritime border areas will also be eligible for assistance.
  4. 4. There will be new simplified procedures for the administration of the Funds, balanced by a new requirement for cost-benefit appraisal and for streng-thened monitoring and evaluation to improve value for money. Assistance will henceforth be allocated where appraisal shows commensurate benefits.

The total size of the funds, up to 1999, had already been settled by the Edinburgh European Council. If the Irish reservation is withdrawn it should be possible for the Council to adopt the reguations definitively at its meeting on 19 and 20 July. But several matters remain to be settled before the new arrangements can be implemented, with effect from 1 January 1994:

  1. 1. No firm decisions have yet been taken on the financial allocations to any region.
  2. 2. The maps of Objective 2 and 5(b) areas have to be drawn. This will be done by a new procedure based on national proposals and taking due account of national priorities. This represents a major improvement on the present system. The Government intends to launch this procedure in the United Kingdom as soon as the regulations have been adopted definitively.
  3. 3. The United Kingdom's and other Member States' plans for the future use of the Funds will have to be drawn up and approved.
  4. 4. The Council is to discuss the future content of the Community Initiatives during the Autumn.

The Commission's report on the Uruguay round covered in particular progress in the current quadrilateral talks between the Community, the United States, Canada and Japan. The Council fully supported the Commission's efforts to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion by the end of the year.