Brussels, 27/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - Commissioner Hahn will have visited 13 Greek regions when his mandate as the European Commissioner for Regional Development comes to an end at the end of the month. On Thursday 23 and Friday 24 October, he visited the North Aegean Sea and Western Macedonia, the only regions he had not visited until now.
Two years ago, the Commissioner took the initiative to make this tour of the Greek regions in an effort to demonstrate his support by visiting projects financed through European Structural Funds. At the end of this final visit, he explained “At a time when all the talk was about austerity, I wanted to hear and see for myself what people were experiencing and how they thought EU Regional Policy could help their villages and cities to recover”. He affirmed that he had met many people and seen “an exceptional dynamism and determination across the country, even at the most severe moments of the crisis”. Hahn said that he was convinced that Greece's regions are the key to the country's recovery and its transformation into a productive economy.
At the end of 2011, co-financing ceilings for regional projects funded during the 2007-2013 programming period rose by 10 percentage points, which in certain cases brought the EU contribution up to 95% by taking the pressure off the Greek public coffers and allowing for the targets to be achieved. Together with the Greek authorities, the European Commission also reprogrammed the country's national envelope for structural funds by way of an action plan including 180 priority projects and a deadline for completing them in this period. Greece is currently developing operational programmes that will be funded up until the end of the decade, by way of the €15 billion planned for its 2014-20 structural and investment funds envelope. (MD)