Regional policy needs an active partnership with civil society

long-standing and active interest in the European Union’s regional policy. As the bridge between organised civil society and the EU, the EESC’s contention was and is that at the end of the day the actual implementation of regional policy takes place at the local level and has a direct impact on civil society. To ensure the success of the union’s regional policy, involvement of civil society through active partnership has been promoted by the committee and is an essential element of that policy against a background of multilevel and good governance. We have always worked closely with the European Commission and with its Regional Policy Directorate-General, offering through our opinions new stimuli and novel insights towards improving the efficiency and impact of regional policy.
The classical approach of the EU’s regional policy was to help develop lagging regions so that economic and social disparities between the richer and the poorer regions could be reduced. However, in this approach the problems of the highly developed, urban and metropolitan areas were neglected as the focus was primarily to enhance convergence of the less-developed regions towards the EU average. Our committee has initiated a new way of looking at metropolitan areas which are increasingly the “motors” of the European Union’s economy. Coming from a dynamic merchant’s and port’s city like Thessaloniki in Greece, I am a vivid testimony of this perspective.
Without specific attention being paid to the union’s urban and metropolitan areas, their ability in the long run to stand up to the challenges of a globalised world would be impaired, and would seriously affect the positive economic and social development of the EU as a whole. It is interesting to note that out of these reflexions, also emerged the Committee’s conviction, one it shares with the parliament, that a successful cohesion policy requires an integrated approach towards finding appropriate solutions for the Union’s problems.
The committee is looking forward to adding its contribution to the general discussion on territorial cohesion and on turning territorial diversity within the European Union into one of its key strengths. Through its recent opinions on the Territorial Agenda, on the most recent Cohesion Reports, and on Governance and Partnership, the committee has built up a sizeable commentary on the EU’s cohesion policy and the challenges posed by globalisation, climate change, or demographic change for instance. The Open Days which are organised by the Committee of the Regions have been of direct interest to the EESC.
The Committee has been very pleased to become a partner institution in this annual event that has come to mobilise several thousand visitors to coming to our joint headquarters building in Brussels. More recently, the EESC has actively supported the inclusion of an Investors’ Café to the Open Days programme, which brings together, in a novel setting, the world of business and regional authorities, with a view to stimulating more intense contacts between relevant players, and to facilitating further investment in the regions. Increasingly, as a result of money for investment funding becoming more scarce at the central level, investment in local and regional projects has become a matter for the business world working closely together with local and regional authorities.
It is important for members of the EESC who interact with the business community, to be able to play a role in the networking around the Open Days. As a forum for dialogue and consultation for civil society organisations across Europe, the EESC sees it as one of its primary tasks to bring the European Union closer to its citizens. The Open Days 2008 Regions and cities in a challenging world aim at this very target, and the EESC, through its members, has contributed actively to the programme expecting this event, like its predecessors, to be an unqualified success.