Regional Policy - Inforegio

The Commission has recently published two documents in the context of the preparation for the Europe 2020 strategy, the successor to the Lisbon strategy.

The Lisbon strategy evaluation: The Europe 2020 strategy will build on the successes and results obtained by the Lisbon strategy since its 2005 relaunch...

Under the overarching theme "Regional responses and global shifts: actors, institutions and organisations" the RSA has launched a call for papers for its annual international conference. This event will be hosted in the European Capital of Culture 2010, Pécs in Southern Hungary, between 24 and 26 May 2010. The deadline for speaker registration and abstract submission is Sunday 14 February 2010.

The European Commission is organising a conference on 4 February in Brussels to mark 20 years of EU support for urban development. This will provide an opportunity to review the experience acquired since the launch of the URBAN initiative’s first pilot projects in 1989. The cohesion policy will invest a total of €10 billion in the period 2007-2013 in urban development throughout Europe.

Barcelona will host the European Summit of Local Governments 22-24 February 2010, bringing together representatives from local groups, governments, European institutions and the private sector. The question at the heart of the summit is how local governments need to go about strengthening the cohesion of cities and Europe in general.

The Director General of DG Regional Policy, Dirk Ahner, is today meeting with a political delegation from northern Finland, Norway and Sweden representing the Northern Sparsely Populated Areas (NSPA) grouping. They will present their political position on the future European cohesion policy –the first in Europe with a cross-border vision for 2020.

The European Commission's Regional Policy department (DG REGIO) has produced the fourth in the series of short papers on regional research and indicators. This latest paper takes a look at the role of public expenditure in Spain. Regional and local authorities play an increasingly important role when it comes to expenditure decisions of the public sector. Many decisions regarding the EU's structural funds and the national equivalent expenditure take place at sub-national level. Consequently, information on expenditure at all levels of government is essential to get a clear picture of the impact of public expenditure decisions in the economy.

The Azores are organising a seminar in Brussels on 28 January, entitled "Azores, European Region of the Year 2010, an asset to Europe", after having been awarded this accolade by the International Bureau of Cultural Capitals (IBOCC). The Portuguese and European authorities will debate two themes which are very important to the region; the sea, and sustainable development. Gastronomic and artistic specialities from the Azores archipelago will also be there for visitors to discover.

The Committee of the Regions has just published its final report with results from the online survey ""The European Economic Recovery Plan in Regions and Cities: One Year On". The survey - conducted by the CoR Lisbon Monitoring Platform - assessed how the European Economic Recovery Plan is being implemented at grass roots level, as perceived by the EU local and regional authorities.

Spain took over the rotating 6-month presidency of the European Union at the beginning of this year. With the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, the Spanish will be the first to operate in the new political and institutional context. As regards cohesion policy, the debate on the shape of the future policy will be a top priority. The Spanish Presidency has also flagged up the development policy of EU island regions, and of the seven Outermost Regions (such as the Azores or Guadeloupe), as other key priorities.

The first in a series of stakeholder events, organised in the framework of the preparation of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region, will take place in Ulm (Germany) on 1 and 2 February 2010. This marks the start of a series of conferences and debates to be held providing opportunity for interested parties to feed in views. Drawing closely on the experience of the EU's Baltic Sea Region Strategy, the European Council formally requested the European Commission to draw up a strategy for the Danube Region by the end of 2010. As with the Baltic region, pressing challenges also exist here, not least in the need to improve transport and energy networks, reduce pollution and tackle flooding.

RegioStars – the awards for innovative projects - is an annual event to recognise and reward innovative projects supported by EU cohesion policy. RegioStars 2010 has seen a record 87 applications from project promoters and regions from all 27 Member States. This year six awards are on offer in three broad areas: two "CityStar" awards, three awards in ICT themes and one Information and Communication award. The RegioStars Jury, under the chairmanship of Dr Jan OLBRYCHT MEP, has now chosen 24 finalists across the six categories. These finalists are listed here.

At the IVC Capitalisation Conference “Building on Regional policy good practice” in Gothenburg - under the auspices of the Swedish presidency and hosted by Västra Götaland - the third call for proposals was launched with a deadline of 5 March 2010. The call is specifically for projects that plan to capitalise by transferring existing good practices. The successful projects would also be eligible for a fast track label and support from the Commisision in particular under Priority 2 of the programme - "sustainable development" - which has relatively few capitalisation projects to date.

The European Commission's Regional Policy department (DG REGIO) has produced the third in the series of working papers on regional research and indicators. This latest paper discusses the future of cohesion policy in richer regions and reviews the arguments around this contentious issue. Much of this debate turns on whether cohesion policy is understood as being primarily about distributive transfers, or rather as a policy that is intended to promote economic change and development. The purpose of this paper is to set out concisely the arguments on both sides of the debate and suggest some ways forward.