Brussels, 23/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - On 8 October 2007, the European Commission officially adopted Luxembourg's National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), which was officially signed in a ceremony in Luxembourg on Monday 22 October attended by EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hubner and Luxembourg's foreign trade and economy minister, Jeannot Krecke. Commissioner Hubner also held discussions with Luxembourg's prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker.
The European Commission has thus given the official launch to Luxembourg's selected investment strategy for implementing the Cohesion Policy 2007-2013. In the NSRF, Luxembourg's authorities decided on the allocation of the €65.27 million of EU funding it will receive over the seven year period (respecting the Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Employment) among the following priorities: 1) helping make Luxembourg more attractive for investment and employment by encouraging the establishment of SMEs and reorganising urban conglomerations which have undergone economic change; 2) improving knowledge and innovation, the growth vectors, by investing in private and public research; and 3) creating more quality jobs by dealing with job seekers individually and increasing the low levels of employment among women and older workers.
Luxembourg will be implementing two programmes under the 'Regional Competitiveness and Employment' objective (an ERDF programme and an ESF programme, with €25.2m funding) and one or more programmes under the 'European Territorial Cooperation' objective, with funding of €14.8 million. Info: http: //http://www.ec/europa.eu/regional_policy/atlas2007/fiche/lu_en.pdf (G.B.)