Brussels, 07/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - At the conference to prepare the forthcoming macro-regional strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian region, which was held in Athens on 6 and 7 February, Commissioner Hahn did not mince his words to motivate the authorities which will be in charge of it. The European Commission is currently preparing an action plan for the implementation of this strategy in Italy, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro and Serbia, but the political will of these states will make all the difference, he stressed.
On the basis of the experience acquired from the macro-regional strategies for the Danube and the Baltic Sea, the commissioner gave advice to the foreign ministers of the eight countries in question, who were present in Athens to assess the results of the public consultation which ran until the end of December last year on the Adriatic and Ionian strategy (implementation planned for 2015).
The states at the wheel. “This new approach can only really flourish if the micro-regions are willing to be drivers, not passengers. The Commission will facilitate and support, but you have to be the leaders”, he warned. He stressed that, if the action plan (to be published in June) is used as cover for national approaches, it will fail. At this stage, political commitment has to be translated into adequate resources, including human resources, within each government plus ministry experts, Hahn said: “If you are not able or willing to provide adequate staffing, you should not expect great results”. He went on to recommend that the ministers start off with realistic and quantifiable joint objectives, before going on to expand the scope of the strategy. It is also for this reason that the strategy will be based around four key pillars (environment, tourism, blue growth, transport and energy networks) rather than around ten, as with the other two strategies. The commissioner went on to state that €50 million could be drawn from the structural and investment funds.
Multi-governance. The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPRM), which was represented in the debates, also shared its experiences, pointing out that the regional and local authorities should also be involved in devising and implementing the strategy. “Because the extremely inter-governmental way in which the Baltic Sea strategy was managed proved to have its limitations”, said the president of the association, Annika Annerby Jansson, who is also the chair of the Regional Council of Skane, Sweden.
Alpine region. Another macro-strategy is also being prepared for presentation in 2015, covering the alpine region of Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Slovenia, Lichtenstein and Switzerland. Commissioner Hahn will meet the ministers and ambassadors of these countries at a high-level conference on Monday 10 February. (MD/transl.fl)