During the celebration of the European Parliament plenary session, MEPs adopted on 7 October, two resolutions seeking a more flexible cohesion policy, which will take into account the characteristics of different regions as well as simplify the procedures and improve systems for monitoring and evaluation.

The resolution on regional and cohesion policy after 2013, put forward by the Regional Development Committee, rejects any attempt to renationalise this policy and stresses the need to take fully into account the regional dimension in the proposed revised budget of the European Union and the future financial framework.

As already expressed late September in relation to island and mountain regions, MEPs consider that the outermost regions, border regions, regions with specific geographical features and other regions facing specific development challenges should continue to benefit from specific provisions within regional policy. In addition, the Committee believes the current policy design, which allows funds to be distributed according to objectives such as "Convergence", "Regional Competitiveness and Employment", "Territorial Cooperation", should be preserved and cooperation among regions should be enhanced.

Also, gross domestic product (GDP) should remain the key yardstick for determining eligibility for regional assistance, while other indicators may be added with room left for national authorities to decide on additional criteria depending on local specificities.

The text also calls for more attention to cities and suggests that the next programming period should allocate resources to finance investments in urban, suburban and rural areas. In this regard, the resolution stresses the need for a financial instrument for that purpose.

The resolution calls for further streamlining of procedures, making the policy more user-friendly. MEPs call for the policy to be more "result-oriented", which entails creating a better balance between quality of performance and financial control.

In the second resolution, on the future of the European Social Fund (ESF), tabled by the Employment Committee, MEPs argue that the ESF must be strengthened as the main instrument underpinning the Europe 2020 strategy and underline the importance of the ESF as a key tool in combating unemployment, improving education and life-long learning and combating poverty and exclusion.