Brussels, 02/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - The European Economic and Social Committee, meeting in Brussels last week under the chairmanship of Dimitris Dimitriadis, adopted four reports, drawn up at the request of the German presidency of the EU, on European metropolitan areas, an EU territorial agenda, transport in urban and metropolitan areas and promotion of cross-border cycle traffic. Discussions took place on the afternoon of Wednesday 25 April, with German Secretary of State for Transport, Construction and Urban Development Englebert Lütke Daldrup taking part (see EUROPE 9413).
“We need a better opportunity to assess European directives on our cities and regions, and the EESC must be part of this development,” Mr Daldrup said, and he spoke of a number of political measures to be taken in the 2007-2010 period: (1) towns must be made better able to cope with the effects of climate, (2) cohesion policy must be improved for rural regions, and (3) a neighbourhood policy. “We are currently working with the future Slovenian presidency of the EU to bring forward such an agenda at the 2008 Spring summit,” he said. Mr Daldrup also said that “cycling also had a role to play in town and country planning”. He announced that Commission Vice President with responsibility for Transport Jacques Barrot would present proposals on how to promote cross-border cycle transport on the evening of 24 May, at the dinner in Leipzig given by the German presidency at the informal Council of Ministers with responsibility for planning and urban development (for agenda, see EUROPE 9406). The rapporteur of the exploratory opinion on European metropolitan areas, Joost van Iersel (Netherlands, employers' group) told the meeting that the Commission would shortly bring forward a Green Paper on this matter. Luis Miguel Pariza Castanos (Spain, employees' group), rapporteur on the opinion on the territorial agenda, said that a new stage of increased political cooperation had to be begun, the open method of coordination (OMD) had to be adopted within ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observatory Network) for the territorial agenda, and, for this, the Commission had to have a specific service, a strong unit. Luz Ribbe (Germany, various interests group), the rapporteur on transport in urban and metropolitan areas, observed that 40% of CO² emissions came from cities and felt that a transport prevention policy should be pursued, trying to limit the increase in traffic and using environmental means of transport where possible. Finally, Jan Simons (Netherlands, employers' group), the rapporteur of the report on promoting cross-border cycle transport, argued for a European cycling policy.
All the plenary session opinions are available on http: //http://www.eesc.europa.eu (gb)