Brussels, 25/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - Portugal, which will be holding the EU presidency for this half year, has presented its priorities concerning spatial planning and regional development. It has said it will continue the process launched by the Informal Council in Rotterdam in 2004 when ministers decided to focus their work on territorial cohesion until 2007 in order to meet the ambitions set out in the Lisbon Agenda (see EUROPE 8839).
In the document setting out its priorities, the Portuguese EU presidency adds that it will prepare the action plan on territorial cohesion. This plan was approved by the ministers during their informal meeting in Leipzig on 24 and 25 May (see EUROPE 9434), and will be presented during the informal meeting of ministers for spatial planning and regional development on 23 and 24 November in the Azores. The meeting will provide an opportunity for member states to reflect on implementation of the regional agenda, the presidency states in its document, adding that the informal Azores meeting will also tackle the issue of regional development, mainly its contribution concerning the accomplishment of the Lisbon strategy and that of the EU for sustainable development. In this field, Portugal will promote the launch of a debate on the future of cohesion policy, on the basis of the fourth cohesion report, adopted on 30 May by the College (see EUROPE 9435) and presented by the commissioner for regional policy, Danuta Hübner, to all European bodies (see EUROPE 9475 in particular).
The presidency also pointed out that it will apply decisions taken at the informal ministerial meeting in Leipzig on urban development, concerning in particular coordination of European networks for the exchange of experience, apprenticeship and competence, and the acquisition of new knowledge, and that it will begin to implement the Leipzig Charter on sustainable European towns (see EUROPE 9430).
In another dossier entitled the “Portuguese presidency of the Council - A stronger Union for a better world, July-December 2007”, the presidency of the Council comments that it will support cohesion, a political pillar of the Union, and encourage conceptual reflection on this theme. It also plans to pay special attention to the specific situation of the EU's very outlying regions.
Speaking before the EP committee on regional development on 17 July, the Portuguese minister for such issues, Francesco Nunes Correia, announced the following events: (1) an interregional forum in Lisbon on 20 and 21 September; (2) the Cohesion Forum organised by the European Commission in Brussels on 27 and 28 September; and (3) a seminar on the assessment indicators for Structural Fund programmes, in Faro on 14 November. (gb)