Brussels, 07/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - The interregional group for the “Greater SarreLorLux Region” met at the plenary session of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) on Wednesday 6 June in Brussels, under the presidency of the minister president of the German-speaking community of Belgium, Karl-Heinz Lambertz (PES). The session was also attended by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.
Speaking on the subject of Luxembourg, the European capital of culture in 2007 (together with the city of Sibiu in Romania), Juncker said that he was afraid that, once this year was over, they would forget the initiatives taken on this occasion: 100-150 events were organised for the whole of the Greater SarreLorLux Region and it would be good that these initiatives continued. Juncker said that they should set up a permanent and funded structure to ensure a continuation of cultural events, an idea that Karl-Heinz Lambertz totally agreed with, as did other representatives from the region taking part in this meeting. Juncker also noted that “competition in 20-30 years time in Europe would be a competition between regions that had economic weight. If the integration procedure follows in a reasonable way, this regional dimension will be at the forefront, with everything being played out at a regional level. The Greater Region should be renamed. It includes 12-13 million people with common interests”. Mr Juncker said that they should act at a cross-border and social level - “social Europe is the subject before us”, he added. He also highlighted the importance of languages (“We express ourselves in at least 4 languages in the Greater Region, this is the only one of its kind in Europe”.)
Set up in November 2002, the interregional group for the Greater SarreLorLux Region (a sub-group of the CoR) aims to: take action and a position on events and themes linked to European policy; develop its own initiatives on European policy on specific issues in the region and promote their implementation; publish concerns and orientations of the region in European policy, as part of enlargement with a view to bringing European countries closer together; communicate the importance of the border regions to the outside world and share experiences about interregional cooperation. The group consists of representatives from the regions of the Sarre, Rhenanie Palatinate, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Wallonia and German speaking region of Belgium. The next meeting of the interregional group is on 28-29 November in Brussels as part of the CoR plenary session.