PMC HCIOP
Structural Funds –
preparations for next ‘round’
Mullingar, 12.12.2012
1
Content
s
Commission Position Paper
Contents
A. Context
B. Challenges and Priorities relevant to Funds
C. Success Factors for Effective Delivery
D. What next?
2
Context
Common Strategic Framework
• Strategic, integrated, coordinated and coherent
approach
• Thematic concentration
• Prioritisation for visible results
• Results orientation
• Cooperation
• Simplification
3
Context
EU level
National level
THE COMMON STRATEGIC FRAMEWORK
ERDF, ESF, EAFRD, EMFF
THE PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
ERDF, ESF, EAFRD, EMFF
Operational Programmes for
ERDF (incl. ETC)
ESF
EMFF
EAFRD
4
Context
Socio-economic situation in Ireland
• Ireland GDP per capita 129 % (2011) of the EU27 (2009: 127%)
• Regional disparities (2009) between Southern
and Eastern (142%) and Border, Midland and
Western (89%)
• Unemployment: 14,7% (2011) (of which 59,4%
long-term in nature)
• Youth unemployment: 29,1% (2011)
• At-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion 29,9%
(2010)
5
Context
Europe 2020 headline targets
Europe 2020 headline targets
Current
situation
Ireland
National 2020
target - NRP
3% of EU GDP to be invested in
research and development
1.8%
2%
20% energy from renewables
5,8%
16%
64,1%
69-71%
277000
200000
75% population aged 20-64 should
be employed
Reduction in number of people in
EU at risk of poverty or social
exclusion by al least 20 million
6
Context
Why a Position Paper?
• Context: closer alignment with Europe 2020
strategy, Memorandum of Understanding and
Country Specific Recommendation
• Pro-active approach: "no surprises" early stage
information on Commission services' position on
Member State priorities for 2014-2020
• Based on challenges and development needs
• Clears the way for informal dialogue between
Commission services and Member States
7
B. Challenges and Priorities relevant
to the Funds
•
High levels of unemployment, increasingly longterm in nature
•
High youth unemployment
•
Increasing risk of social exclusion
8
Significant challenges
• High unemployment, increasingly long-term
in nature:
9
Significant challenges
Youth Unemployment and NEET rate
10
Significant challenges
Level of early school leaving above national
target for 2020
Source: Eurostat
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Significant challenges
Increasing risk of Poverty and social exclusion
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Funding priority
Combatting
1. long-term unemployment
2. youth unemployment and
3. social exclusion
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Priorities and specific objectives
1. Promoting employment and labour mobility
1.1. Access to employment and support for
labour mobility:
• Support the unemployed, with a particular focus on the
long-term unemployed, to access employment
• Improve qualification levels of low skilled unemployed, with
a particular focus on low skilled long-term unemployed
• Support women to (re)integrate into the labour market
14
Priorities and specific objectives
1.2. Sustainable integration of young people not
in employment, education or training (NEET) into
the labour market
• Support NEETS to participate in training programmes which
include work experience with labour market relevance;
• Support the introduction of the youth guarantee that aims
at offering support to young people not in employment,
education and training within 4 months of leaving school.
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Priorities and specific objectives
• 1.3. Modernisation and strengthening of labour
market institutions
•
Support the development of skills of PES staff
• 1.4. Facilitating diversification and job creation
in rural areas
•
Up-skilling, job creation and entrepreneurship in rural areas
• 1.5. Facilitating the transition towards new
skills and jobs from fisheries and related
activities
•
Support for quality job creation in coastal communities
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Priorities and specific objectives
• 2. Promoting social inclusion
• 2.1. Active inclusion:
• Support people in poverty or at risk of poverty and social exclusion to
access counselling, training and other activities, with the aim to bring them
closer to the labour market;
• Preventative support at an early stage for children and teenagers of
vulnerable groups to help them integrate in the labour market and society.
• 2.2. Support to basic services and other poverty
reduction measures in rural and coastal areas, including
• Provision or adaptation of local basic services and promotion of
entrepreneurship and skills acquisition,
• Fostering Community-led Local Development (CLLD) including LEADER
local development strategies and investments in small- scale
infrastructures.
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Priorities and specific objectives
• 3. Investing in education and lifelong learning
• 3.1. Reducing early school-leaving :
• Support early school leavers and low skilled people to gain upper
secondary education and to reduce low achievement in basic skills.
• 3.2. Lifelong learning, training and advisory services for
farmers, seafarers and rural population
• Support the transfer of knowledge in particular on good farm and forestry
management practice.
• Support vocational training, entrepreneurship and skills acquisition in new
technologies specific to the marine industry, agriculture and forestry.
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Challenges and Priorities relevant to
the Funds
Insufficient commercialisation of basic research and
low availability of finance for the private sector
(especially SMEs)
Irleand 10th on the Innovation Union scoreboard and
Innovation Follower
• Funding Priority:
• Promote R&D investment and the
competitiveness of the business sector
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Challenges and Priorities relevant
to the Funds
Inefficient use of resources
• 5,8% share of renewable energy sources in final
consumption
• 7,6% reduction in GHG emissions – long way to
go to reach 20% target in 2020
Funding Priority:
Promotion of an environmentally-friendly and
resource efficient economy
20
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C. Success Factors for Effective
Delivery
• Strategic, integrated, coordinated and coherent
approach
• Monitoring and Evaluation aligned to new
regulatory framework
• Coordination, complementarity and synergy
between CSF funds including use of integrated
approaches (ITIs, CLLD, etc.)
22
Success factors …
Ex-ante conditionalities:
• Smart Specialisation Strategy
• Active labour market policies are designed and
delivered in coherence with Employment
Guidelines
• Fisheries-related conditionalities (multi-annual
strategic plan on aquaculture, administrative
capacity for data collection and implementation
of an EU control, inspection and enforcement
system)
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Success factors
Monitoring and evaluation
Emphasis should shift from financial absorption to
results. This implies building robust monitoring and
evaluation capacities, implying:
• Setting of reliable targets and tracking of physical
progress
• Improved alert mechanisms
• In-depth evaluations and conversion of results into
remedial measures when required
• Development of sound methodologies to capture the
results of the interventions
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Success factors
Integrated approaches to territorial
development
• A broad range of instruments are provided for in this
regard and should be fully grasped (e.g. Atlantic
Strategy)
• In order to stimulate ownership, the role of local actors
should be enhanced in line with the LEADER experience
• Integrated Territorial Investments allow the flexible
implementation of parts of OPs in a cross-cutting
manner – their success may critically depend on setting
up sound management structures
• Community-led Local Development offers an integrated
bottom-up approach in response to complex territorial
challenges
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D. What Next?
• Informal dialogue meetings between Commission
and Ireland
• Submission of draft Partnership Agreement
• Negotiation mandate and observations on
Partnership Agreement sent to Ireland by
Commission
• Adoption Partnership Agreement
• Submission of draft Programmes
• Observations on Programmes by Commission
• Final deadline for adoption of Programmes
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What next?
Next steps
•Decemberr
2012
Launch Ireland
December
2012 until
submission
PA by MS
Second
semester
2013
Second
semester
2013
Informal
dialogue
between EC
and Ireland Discussion
on
specific areas
PA/OPs
Official
submission
PA and OPs
Beginning
of the official
negotiations
between EC
and Ireland
Q1 2014
First half
2014
PA
adoption
by EC
OP
adoption
by EC
27
What next?
Timing for negotiations
What next?
It is essential to start the preparation of the
new programming documents now.
Work should start on:
• Ex-ante conditionalities to be fulfilled by the PA
and OPs submission
• Ex-ante evaluation to be ready by the PA and
OPs submission
• Involvement of all partners from the start
ensuring ownership of the programmes
Thank you.