Barca Report on the future of cohesion policy
To contribute to the debate on future cohesion policy, Commissioner Danuta Hübner has asked Dr. Fabrizio Barca (Director General, Ministry of Economy & Finance, Italy) to prepare an independent report containing an assessment of the effectiveness of cohesion policy to date as well as a series of proposals how to reform cohesion policy for the period post 2013.
In this context, Mr. Barca has organised, over the last year, eight hearings and seminars with academic experts and policy makers. The results of these discussions, those of ten working papers prepared for the report and a review of the economic literature and emprirical evidence served as the basis for drawing up the findings of the report.
The report discusses the economic rationale and motivation of an EU place based development policy and provides an assessment of EU cohesion policy. In addition it identifies a limited number of core priorities on which to focus cohesion policy. Finally, it presents recommendations on key pillars of cohesion policy governance pinpointed for reform.
The proposals of the report have been developed in full independence from the Commission. They provide many interesting ideas for the ongoing debate on future cohesion policy.