Brussels, 21/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - The 4th Committee of the Regions plenary session, held in Brussels last week, provided an opportunity for a broad debate on asylum, immigration and combating racism. Beate Winkler, Director of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia addressed the representatives of European cities and regions before they adopted the report by Ruth Bagnall (PES, UK) on the entire common policy concerning immigration, asylum and the status of refugees put forward by the European Commission. Albert Bore, CoR President opened the meeting by calling on the EU and the CoR members to not "underestimate the wave of doubts and unease expressed by our citizens" about the rapid pace of globalisation. The rise of populist and extremist groups opposed to the EU "is a warning to all those of us committed to democratic values to focus less on our differences and more on what binds us together". Ruth Bagnall's report generally supported the Commission's proposals on asylum and immigration but called for greater involvement of cities and regions since they are in the front line and have to be involved in drawing up policies and should receive funding for the services they provide in terms of housing, education, etc, stressed the rapporteur.
The Committee of the Regions also discussed the financial consequences of enlargement, adopting a report by Lord Hanningfield (British Conservative) on the financial framework for the accession negotiations. The CoR calls for regions which would have been eligible for Objective 1 funding after 2006 were it not for enlargement to continue to receive EU regional policy funding and also, in Lord Hanningfield's words, called for a greater decentralisation of cohesion policy to that partnerships can be managed at local and regional level. In terms of access to agricultural aid, the CoR suggests that candidate countries making progress in restructuring agriculture in their country to be rewarded by earlier access to the Common Agricultural Policy.
The CoR gave its opinion on various transport initiatives, critical of the latest European Commission transport guidelines. The report by Ramon Luis Valcarcel Siso (EPP, Spain) mentioned the "missed opportunity" and called for much greater effort to be made in terms of connecting up the rail and road networks. In an opinion on promoting the use of biofuel (Reinhold Bocklet, EPP, Germany), the CoR called for it to be exempt from duty.
The CoR also gives its opinion on the labelling of genetically modified food (Mr Bertrand, EPP, France); the single European Sky (Mr Verburg, EPP, the Netherlands); the regional dimension of the European Research Area (Mr Müller, EPP, Germany); the creation of a GALILEO joint undertaking (Mr Tabakidis, PES, Greece); the eEUROPE 2002 programme (Mr Ervela, ELDR, Finland); the environmental performance on the freight transport system (Ms du Granrut, EPP, France); the European Year of Education through Sport 2004 (Ms Kemp, EPP, UK; and Mr Mientus, PES, Germany); and trans-European energy networks (Mr Pilli, EPP, Italy).
On the first day of the plenary session the CoR were addressed by the President of the Economic and Social Committee (ESC), the German national Göke Frerichs, who expressed a desire for greater informal co-operation between the two institutions. Focussing on the specific role of each, Frerichs stressed the importance of instituting dialogue on greater political co-operation over and above technical co-operation through joint work and called for the two institutions to work together in the Convention on the Future of Europe by consulting each other before presenting proposals, for example. He said that working together could take the form of the adoption of common or agreed opinions and joint conferences. The CoR were clearly all ears, agreeing that unity give strength and expressing plans to work closer together in the future on vital strategic issues and common objectives. Albert Bore (UK), CoR President, hailed the outstretched hand from his ESC counterpart, saying that the groundwork for closer co-operation between the two institutions had now been laid.