From 6 to 9 October, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) welcomes Europe's top decision makers and regional policy experts for OPEN DAYS 2008, the European Week of Regions and Cities, in Brussels. In only five years, the OPEN DAYS has become the "must attend" event of the year for regional policy and for sharing best practices in regional and urban development. The OPEN DAYS takes place alongside the Committee's autumn plenary session and gathers around 7,400 political representatives and stakeholders from banking, business, civil society, EU institutions and the media. It aims at combining topics of major political importance with practical questions of regional policy implementation.
With this year's theme "Regions and cities in a challenging world" we draw attention to global policy issues facing our regions and cities. Special attention will be given to regional responses to climate change and sustainable energy solutions for cities. The event will set the scene for a milestone document of European cohesion policy, the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion. The moment to launch the paper is well chosen. We will discuss how territorial cohesion should be put into practice. I would like to stress the commitment of the CoR for a strong and efficient European regional policy, rejecting any attempt of re-nationalisation of a policy that has already achieved good results. Today, regions and cities are more important than ever in political terms. Sub-national public sector expenditure in the EU has reached 2 000 billion euros, representing 16% of the European GDP.
Regions and local authorities are key actors in innovation, research and education. One in three euros of EU public expenditure is spent at sub-national levels. Regional policy is not only formulated in Brussels. This is why this year we are organising more than 250 local events. Indeed, Europe will only be a success when it goes local.