Several regional policy issues await the European Commission after the summer break, including a communication on obstacles to cross-border cooperation and establishing a European strategy for remote European regions.
At the end of September, the European Commission is expected to unveil a communication on obstacles to cross-border cooperation and solutions to these problems. The communication will probably include a number of recommendations but is not expected to include legislative proposals.
Most importantly, the Commission is due to present at the end of October a strategy on the remote regions. Recently, the European Parliament adopted an own-initiative report calling on the Commission to take better account of the remote regions’ derogations under Article 349 of the TFEU (see EUROPE 11824). The Commission will certainly take on board some of the memorandum by the presidents of the remote regions that was published in April (see EUROPE 11763).
Other initiatives are in the European Commission pipeline, such as a call for tender in late September, early October for pilot action on smart specialisation, presented earlier in the month (see EUROPE 11832).
The European institution is also expected to reveal in September or October the outcome of its second call for innovative urban action projects. The first call for tender was in September 2016 for a value of around €50 million in total, shared out among eighteen projects.
Still in relation to urban policy, the commission is due to present a report on implementation of the urban agenda for Europe, eighteen months after its launch (see EUROPE 11553). At the end of November, a Cities Forum will be held in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), devoted to the Urban Agenda and a range of partnerships. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)