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Committee of the Regions: President Lebrun welcomes 6th Cohesion Report

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lebrun_cor"The sixth report on economic, social and territorial cohesion shows that EU regional policy has made a big difference in reducing the impact of the crisis, but development gaps are on the rise again and the unemployment tragedy has still not been adequately tackled," said European Committee of the Regions (CoR) President Michel Lebrun, commenting on the report just published by the European Commission.

Besides assessing the impact of the 2007-2013 investment plans, the report provides an initial analysis of the outlook and priorities of EU cohesion policy over the coming years. "The Commission highlights the crucial function of regions and cities in the EU's strategies for overcoming the crisis, fully taking on board the CoR's call to strengthen the territorial dimension of Europe's growth strategy, Europe 2020," highlighted Lebrun, adding that "over the coming years, delivering job opportunities, quality training and education, as well as active policies to counter social exclusion, will be the most demanding challenges for regional and national governments. In particular, implementation of the Youth Employment Initiative and the increased role of the European Social Funds will considerably put to test our capacity to coordinate all the players involved at EU, national, regional and local level."

In this connection, Lebrun called on the Commission to carefully monitor and support the efforts being made to tackle unemployment at national and regional level: "We need to join forces to proactively prevent any delay in implementing measures that are of the greatest relevance for our communities and for restoring confidence in EU policies after the wake-up call of the European elections," he said.

As regards the expected outcome of the cohesion policy reform, the CoR President argued that "we are confident that some of the main achievements of the reforms will help regions and cities to deliver sustainable growth with more targeted investment. Nonetheless, the accent the Commission has placed on worsening problems such as unemployment, poverty and competitiveness gaps among regions is in open contrast to its reiteration of the idea of freezing funds in countries whose national governments have failed to respect fiscal consolidation targets. Such a rule risks introducing an element of uncertainty in the regional multi-annual investment plans aimed at tackling those problems, which will have a destabilising effect".

The Committee of the Regions will be issuing an opinion on the sixth cohesion report, which will be drafted by Nicola Zingaretti (IT/PES), President of the Lazio Region.

 

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