President Lebrun at Commissioner-designate Creţu hearing: 'We welcome commitment to enforce role of regions in delivering jobs and growth'

Committee of the Regions President Michel Lebrun intervened today (1 October) during the European Parliament hearing of the Commissioner-designate for regional policy, Corina Creţu. He insisted on the need to reinforce the territorial dimension of the EU's growth strategy.    

Looking forward to the 2014-2020 programming period, President Lebrun pointed out that EU institutions and national governments needed to pro-actively mobilize to prevent problems related to funds absorption. "The Committee of the Regions is ready to cooperate with the European Commission for this purpose as well as intensify the current commitment by launching a joint action plan," he said.

He also highlighted: "To ensure the swift implementation of 2014-2020 operational programmes, a greater flexibility of the Growth and Stability Pact ceilings should apply for the co-financing of projects supported by EU cohesion policy."

In this respect, a proposal was included in the recently adopted CoR Turin Declaration calling in particular for excluding such co-financing from the Pact calculations.

President Lebrun reiterated the call for a white paper on an integrated European agenda, which aims to structurally anchor the urban dimension in all EU policies. He also urged for the better implementation of multi-level governance at EU and national level. Finally, he insisted on the need for a decentralized communication strategy which increases awareness of EU cohesion policy at regional and local level.

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