Brussels, 20/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - At a meeting Gödöllö on the outskirts of Budapest on Thursday 19 May, the EU town and country planning ministers approved a new EU regional strategy (“territorial strategy”) from now until 2010. The draft strategy was submitted by the Hungarian Presidency with the aim of establishing a new EU regional policy.
Hungary's national development minister, Tamás Felleghi, welcomed the way the ministers had approved the updated version of the EU's 2007 “territorial strategy”, preparation of which had been requested of Hungary in 2009 by the member states. Felleghi said that Hungary's examination of the first territorial agenda in 2007 and lessons learnt by the member states had shown that in order to boost regional cohesion, more action is needed to carefully and painstakingly adjust existing targets rather than drawing up new ones and to ensure operational measures matched the targets.
The re-assessment was required because of the raft of challenges facing the member states and the fact that regional cohesion is an EU objective, along with economic and social cohesion, now that the Lisbon Treaty is in force, explained Tamás Felleghi in a press release. The new territorial agenda matches the EU 2020 strategy, reflecting the conclusions of the European Commission's 5th Cohesion Report, paving the way for new integrated regional development initiatives, added Felleghi. The Hungarian Presidency wants to encourage regional development that pays attention to the specific needs of the region in question in order to ensure the best chance of success, explained Felleghi.
Mercedes Bresso, head of the Committee of the Regions (CoR), stressed the following key points: (1) the territorial cohesion objective must be put into practice in the conception and implementation of major EU policies, meaning that far more systematic use must be made of territorial impact assessments; - territorial cohesion must be included in the cohesion policy's new structure as a priority area or sub-objective in order to provide better support for regions with specific territorial characteristics (islands and mountains, for example) and in order to fund projects taking an infra regional-territorial approach; (2) more indicators must be used to measure specific social and territorial cohesion problems like gaps within a region, income gaps and the like; (3) transnational programmes must back existing macro-regional strategies; and (4) the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) can play a key role in facilitating border cooperation and should be supported, simpflied and expanded. (G.B./transl.fl)