21/09/2018 (Agence Europe) – Committee of the Regions’ rapporteur on the new Common Agricultural Policy proposal Guillaume Cros (PES, France) will meet with Austrian agriculture minister Elisabeth Köstinger on the fringes of the informal Council in Austria on 23 to 25 September at Hof Castle (see EUROPE 12057). The aim is to strengthen the role of the second pillar of the CAP, rural development, which the rapporteur describes as the main victim of budget cuts, regretting the marginalisation of the role and autonomy of the European regions in management of the CAP, as the regions are simply granted implementation of measures established at national level. CoR president Karl-Heinz Lambertz emphasised this and stressed the role of the CAP in territorial cohesion and the need for the second pillar to have the Cohesion Policy at its centre. (PH)