Brussels, 21/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) is ahead of the European institutions in preparing for the creation of an Adriatic-Ionian micro-regional strategy. The heads of state confirmed their intention of working towards this objective at their final summit of December. The European Parliament has also already presented initiatives to this effect (Alfonsi report on the evolution of the micro-regional strategies of the EU), as has the Commission (communication on maritime policy in the Adriatic). However, the CPMR is already active in the field, setting in place a task force to prepare an action plan for 2013. The Italian, Greek and Croatian regions are already in contact with each other to draft out this action plan by spring 2013. The other maritime regions of the Western Balkans are likely to come on board this preparation work. The secretary general of the CPMR, Eleni Marianou, explains this proactivity on the part of the local authorities: “Without waiting for these recent decisions, we already adopted an agenda for the Adriatic in October and set up a task force to help the institutions prepare the action plan scheduled for 2014, when the EU Presidency will be held by two Adriatic-Ionian countries, Italy and Greece”. (MD/transl.fl)