Brussels, 05/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 3 May, EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hubner met a delegation of Greek parliamentarians from the PASOK party (Greek socialists) led by former Social Affairs and Employment Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou. The Commissioner outlined core elements of the EU's Cohesion Policy for 2007-2013. The meeting covered issues like how the funding is managed, the specific situation of Greece (with hundreds of islands) and preparing future Greek programmes.
After outlining the core elements of the new Cohesion Policy, Humber stressed that 'Member States need to accelerate the preparation of their National Strategic Reference Framework (for the Cohesion Policy), and the related Operational Programmes, if they are to start the implementation on time, i.e. at the beginning of 2007.' Danuta Hubner said she agreed that the Cohesion Fund management should be decentralised to allow greater ownership by local and regional stakeholders but said the most important thing was preparing local and regional stakeholders and ensuring adequate administrative capacity and efficient organisational structures.