Current Position and Next Steps

On 6 October 2008 the European Commission launched its Green paper on Territorial Cohesion. The UK responded to this consultation on the 10 March. The UK response and those of the other contributors can be found on the Commission website here

The House of Lords carried out an inquiry into the Future of the EU Regional Policy and published its report on the 16 July 2008. The report, which includes the Government’s written and oral evidence, and the Government’s response to it can be found by following this link.

In responding to the Commission Consultation on the EU Budget Review further developed its position on the future of the Funds. Global Europe: vision for a 21st century budget was published in June 2008 and can be found here.

The Government has now published its response to the Commission's consultation and informed Parliament through a written statement. It can be viewed or downloaded using the link on the right hand side of this page. Other responses to the consultation can be seen by following this link.

The European Commission have run a public consultation on the future of EU Cohesion Policy which closed on 31 January 2008. The UK Government outlined its approach to the consultation in a written statement to Parliament. As noted in the written statement the consultation on the future of Cohesion Policy needs to be considered in the context of the EC Budget Review. Ed Ball’s in his speech to the Institute of Chartered Accountants on the 20 November 2006 outlined UK Government’s approach to this Review.

As part of the Commission’s new Regulations, Managing Authorities and regions are required to develop individual Operational Programmes setting out their detailed spending plans for the Funds for the current period. These Programmes were the subject of public consultations, which ran between autumn 2006 and spring 2007. All of the Operational Programmes have now been agreed by the European Commission.

On 30 July the European Commission approved the UK’s National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) for Structural Funds spending from 2007-2013. 


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