Brussels, 30/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - At their informal meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday 26 and Friday 27 November, Ministers for Town & Country Planning approved a Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU's proposal to allow the adoption of a regulatory framework of countries cooperating in cross-border projects, in order to speed up the completion of the project in question.
One source informed EUROPE that to a certain extent, this “involved taking a legal provision and using it on the other side of the border”. The same source welcomed the positive response to the Luxembourg project, which had received clear support from France, Germany and Belgium, as well as, more or less, support from the six founding countries of the EU.
The envisaged project would take the shape of a regulation, so as to ensure uniform application throughout the EU. In practice, the local and regional authorities involved in a cooperation project would draft an agreement containing specific provisions, so that one of the two parties would be able to adopt the regulatory framework of the other country. The agreement would then be submitted to the authorities at a higher level responsible for this kind of issue in order to obtain their approval. The goal is to circumvent a fastidious national level regulatory and legislative process that hampers the implementation of cooperation projects.
The presidency had already presented this project during the General Assembly of the Committee of the Regions in September (see EUROPE 11380). The response to it then was rather mixed, judging by the opinion of the Luxembourg participants. In Luxembourg, some member states expressed a few reservations and asked for this provision to be voluntary. Others, however, raised the question of implementing such a legal amendment as part of the cooperation framework with third countries and outermost regions. The Commission was requested to carry out an impact study into such a legal provision.
During the ministerial meeting, the crisis involving the refugees flooding into the EU was raised, as well as the position of small and medium-sized cities in the cross-border context and the issue of the urban agenda in the Union. On the first point, the Commissioner for Regional Development, Corina Cretu, reaffirmed her commitment to making the rules on structural and investment funds more flexible, particularly with regard to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). This proposal did not go down well with some member states, including Hungary (see EUROPE 11433). The Commissioner also called on member states to take advantage of the “Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund”.
On the question of the position of small and medium-sized cities in the cross-border context, ministers responsible for this question discussed the issue of poly-centric development that put more emphasis on incorporating the cities into the EU urban programme, an initiative that will be adopted under the Dutch Presidency of the Council. Commissioner Cretu was eager to propose a plan before the summer of 2016 and added, “we have launched four pilot projects to develop solutions to serious problems the cities are having to confront: urban insecurity, housing, air quality and the inclusion of migrants and refugees”. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)