Brussels, 14/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - On 15-16 April in Segovia, the Spanish Presidency will be organising a conference on the consequences of enlargement for local and regional bodies. According to a provisional agenda, the conference will focus on the next round of reforms of the EU institutions within the perspective of enlargement, the regionalisation process in Europe and the role of the Committee of the Regions in an enlarged Europe. No specific debate is envisaged for the time being on the Cohesion Report or reform of regional policy and neither does Spain intend holding an informal meeting of Ministers on regional policy (as opposed to what the Belgian Presidency chose to do in opening the debate on the question of the Cohesion Report - see EUROPE 17 July). Spanish sources reiterated the fact that they were awaiting the new Commission report and that no debate on the subject had taken place at the Council. Whilst Spain is leading discussions on the regional chapter of accession negotiations with candidate countries, focusing on the implementation of structural funds in future Member States, the European Commission will be occupied with overseeing post-2006 regional policy debates. The Commission has to present a completed and updated version of it Cohesion Report at the end of January. This will set out the parameters of the debate and organise the different seminars on the subject. EUROPE will be coming back to this theme later.
Last April Spain presented a memorandum in which it appealed for the question on maintaining regional Community aid to current Member States to be resolved after accession "within the framework of access negotiations". The Commission has, however, insisted on keeping these two debates separate and has for the time being simply taken note of the worries on this subject, by calling on the Commission to further reflect on the issue (see EUROPE 23 April and 12 June).