Comité van de Regio's ondersteunt doelen Iers voorzitterschap (en)

​Assessing the most recent European Council's conclusions and discussing common political priorities were the focus of a meeting between the EU's Committee of the Regions' President, Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso and Ireland's Taoiseach, Enda Kenny i, yesterday. Taking place on the occasion of the CoRs' Europe 2020 Conference on "An Agenda for new skills and jobs" in Dublin, the leaders focused their attention on growth and jobs as well as the strengthening of economic governance by reinforcing the European Semester's territorial dimension.

During the meeting the CoR President reiterated the importance the European Parliament (EP) and Council current negotiations on the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF), stressing that "it could still result in a better compromise for Europe's regions and cities. The new EU budget will determine future regional and local investments, given that more than two thirds of EU public investment is made by regional and local authorities". "It is crucial that the Council ensures the necessary flexibility to annually offset the structural deficit caused by the difference between commitments and payments", President Valcárcel said.

Referring to the European Monetary Union, Valcárcel Siso said that the CoR supports the Irish Presidency to the EU in building a "genuine European Monetary Union". However he expressed concerns regarding "the impact of the new legislation on regional and local authorities' budgetary powers and their investment capacity". The CoR President put forward concrete proposals to strengthen the territorial dimension of the so-called "European Semester" - an EU level economic policy coordination tool aimed at strengthening economic governance -and improving economic policy coordination.

Speaking about the current Irish Presidency to the EU, the CoR President agreed with the Taoiseach that the first EU priority should be to deliver on growth and jobs, with the aspiration of achieving the Europe 2020 targets. He added that the CoR had already begun assessing whether there is a need to revise the Strategy midterm in the year 2014. During the conference Michael Schneider, President of the CoRs’ EPP Group and State Secretary for Saxony-Anhalt, also used the opportunity to meet the Taoiseach. The evaluation is being performed by the CoR Europe 2020 Monitoring Platform with the results being presented through seven conferences, each of them debating one of the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiatives.