Eurocommissarissen Hübner en Pidla spreken op conferentie onder voorzitterschap van Frankrijk over cohesie en het toekomstige cohesiebeleid(en)
The European Commission and French Presidency of the European Union, in partnership with the EU Committee of the Regions and Association of French Regions, are holding a conference in Paris on territorial cohesion and the future Cohesion Policy on 30-31 October. Danuta Hübner, Commissioner for Regional Policy, and Vladimir Špidla, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, will both address the event, which provides the first major opportunity to debate the Commission's recently published Green Paper on territorial cohesion (see IP/08/1460).
Commissioner Hübner said: "Europe's Cohesion Policy provides a rock of stability for Member States and regions - not least at a time of global financial crisis. Territorial cohesion is the foundation of our future Cohesion Policy. It will help improve the competitiveness of our territories and the prosperity of our citizens, whether they live in highly urbanised or less populated areas, mountainous regions or outer-most islands. Territorial cohesion will help us turn Europe's wonderful diversity into a strength, with the support of a flexible and differentiated policy that delivers sustainable jobs and growth which will enable us to maintain a balanced territorial development."
Commissioner Špidla added: "Cohesion is about investing in people. Through financial instruments like the European Social Fund, the EU is better able to create good jobs and equip people with the right skills to fill those jobs. Adapting to a constantly changing economy and labour market as well as improving training and skills are all part of this effort to raise living standards and ensure prosperity for citizens."
The first session of the conference on 30 October, to be opened by Hubert Falco, French Secretary of State for Spatial Planning, is dedicated to territorial cohesion in major European Union policies, with workshops on:
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-The Common Agricultural Policy and Rural Development: this policy and the support it provides to farmers has important territorial impacts through the activities and incomes it supports in rural areas, and through the promotion of land management;
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-Sustainable Development and Climate Change: Ministers of spatial planning and development committed at their informal meeting in the Azores on 23 November 2007 to make climate change mitigation a central feature of spatial planning policies;
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-The renewed Lisbon Strategy for growth and jobs: territorial imbalance stemming from the concentration of growth, innovation and production in the most dynamic European regions and cities is an increased risk. The Commission's 4th report on Economic and Social Cohesion (adopted 30 May 2007) underlined the contrasting capacity of territories to take advantage of the Lisbon Strategy.
Commissioner Hübner will take a leading role in the conference's second session, on 31 October, which addresses territorial cohesion and the future Cohesion Policy. She will participate in two roundtable debates focused on policy rationale, policy effectiveness and policy delivery (more performance-based and results oriented). The Commissioner will urge regional and local authorities, NGOs, civil society and other organisations to take part in the public consultation on the Green Paper, which runs until the end of February 2009. The aim of the consultation is to come to a shared understanding of territorial cohesion, which is recognised in the Treaty of Lisbon as an objective of the EU, together with social and economic cohesion.
Other speakers in the two-day conference will include Committee of the Regions' President Luc Van den Brande, Gerardo Galeote, chairman of the European Parliament Regional Development Committee, João Ferrao, Portuguese Secretary of State for Spatial Planning and Towns, and Alain Rousset, President of the Association of French Regions.
The event will also pave the way for discussions at the next informal meeting of European Ministers for housing, urban development, regional development and cohesion policy, to be held in Marseille on 26 November.
The European Commission will summarise the response to the Green Paper in spring 2009.
More information:
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/consultation/terco/index_en.htm