Brussels, 01/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - Local development is a point which broadly seems to be taken on board in the legislative proposals of the European Commission on revision of cohesion policy during the programming period 2014-2020, as well as the new option to combine structural funds to support this local development. The European Parliament has hosted a seminar on the subject, which was organised jointly by a number of associations representing local and regional authorities (the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions, the Association of Romanian Municipalities). At the seminar, the rapporteur on the general regulation on the structural funds, Lambert Van Nistelrooij (EPP, Netherlands), said that being able to combine the funds was a great step forward, and stressed that local development would be central to the concerns of the parliamentary committee on regional development, which will be reworking the Commission's proposals. Ramona Manescu (ALDE, Romania), shadow rapporteur on the new cohesion rules, acknowledged that the lack of capacity at local level, the lack of partnership and good governance were key problems preventing European funds from leading to the anticipated results, particularly in the new member states. (MD/transl.fl)