Brussels, 24/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - The members of the Socialist group in the Committee of the Regions (CoR) will meet in Bordeaux on 29 May at the invitation of the President of the Region of Aquitaine and of the Association of French Regions Alain Rousset to exchange views on the “role of regional and local authorities in the period of reflection” (on the future of Europe) and on how to give a “Social Soul to Europe”. Debates will take place against the background of the Commission's Plan D and the subsequent opinion by PES group President Mercedes Bresso, who is also President of the Union of European Federalists. The group is expected to adopt a position paper on the challenges facing the European social model and the input of local and regional authorities in modernising it and in communicating Europe to its citizens.
Among those taking part are MEP Proinsas De Rossa (PES, Ireland), Giacomo Filiback (President of the European Community Organisation of Socialist Youth (ECOSY), and Gaëtane Ricard-Nihoud, Secretary General of “Notre Europe”. Ms Bresso will underline the importance of a bottom-up approach and argue the case for a four-dimensional Plan D (Democracy, Dialogue, Debate and Decentralisation). The President of the Committee of the Regions, French Socialist Michel Delebarre will stress the need for a European social project, “reconciling the social and the economic dimension and responding to citizens' expectations, in particular the call for more social protection in a globalised economy”. Mr Delebarre will also emphasise that there should be a reversed prioritisation of the two components of “flexicurity”, “with security being the first and essential step before encouraging flexicurity”.