Brussels, 06/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the European Commission adopted a communication devoted to the assessment of the Community aid programme to the regions under Objective 1 (development and structural adjustment of regions lagging behind in development) for the period 2000-2006. The text will be submitted to the informal Regional Policy/Spatial Planning Council to be held in Namur on 13 and 14 July. The results of the assessment, carried out on a "single grid" for each beneficiary Member State, show that programming takes longer today than in previous periods (on average 10 months instead of 5), that there are fewer programmes and that they take the different Community policies more into account. EUROPE will come back to this in greater detail.