Brussels, 04/08/2006 (Agence Europe) - In Turku (Finland) on 6-7 July, the extraordinary meeting of the Council of the Regions (DoR) Bureau, under the chairmanship of Michel Delebarre, heard Finnish Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Ansi Paasivirta present the Finnish Presidency's priorities. We are going to encourage new ways of promoting innovation to confront the risks of a brain drain from Europe towards Asia and America, he said, arguing for greater “synergetic cooperation” between universities, companies and the public sector and for greater involvement of the private sector in Community cohesion programmes.
The meeting continued with a round table debate on “Globalisation, decentralisation and competitiveness: the public-private partnership” (see EUROPE 9224). Among those who spoke, Juha Kaskinen, Director of Finland Futures Research Centre, presented the lessons to be drawn from the recent pilot action programme “Regions of Knowledge” which links South-West Finland, Wallonia (Belgium) and Düsseldorf (Germany). This initiative, funded by the European Commission, has shown that innovation systems had to be “self-renewing” with an in-built “creative tension to make a buzz”. What was needed was not more networks but different and better quality networks, he concluded. European Commission representative Outi Slotboom (DG Enterprise) said that local and region authorities had to play a crucial coordinating role, to ensure that EU structural funds and national strategies work coherently to promote growth and jobs. The example of Turku and its surrounding region proved that medium sized cities and regions could be competitive on the global market, said Pauliina Haijanen, a member of the Committee of the Regions (EPP, Finland), mentioning the factors that counted: the availability of cheaper business premises, reasonable labour costs, high environmental and service standards, and reliable public administrations. Donald Storrie of the European Monitoring Centre of Change (Dublin Foundation) said that “a permanent state of innovation at the regional level” was needed. After listening to the presentations by the Heads of Nokia and Valmet Automotive, CoR President Michel Delebarre concluded that there could be “no going back to the good old days … we have to face change and citizens have to be told to prepare for several different jobs over their lifetime”. He stressed that “the countries which would be best prepared for the constant evolution of globalisation would be those with developed, decentralised regional organisations”.