Brussels, 23/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - A view days before the visit of a delegation from the European Commission to Beijing, led by its President, José Manuel Barroso, the Committee the Territorial Cohesion Policy (COTER) of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) has held a discussion with the former Director-General of DG Regional Policy (Commission), Graham Meadows, on the EU/China cooperation in the field of regional policy.
"We have something in common with Brazil, Russia and China: we have great regional disparities", stressed Graham Meadows. In May 2006, the European Commission signed a protocol agreement with the Chinese authorities on regional policy, with the objective of creating a framework for the exchange of information and knowledge in this field, he pointed out. Since then, the Commission has worked towards building genuine cooperation between the EU and China, with the creation of structured dialogue. Meetings are held on an annual basis; the next one will take place this November in China. The former Director-General explained that dialogue of this kind with China "is particularly rich, as the situations are so different. We must act in order to reduce and remove these great disparities, otherwise we will see a fall in economic growth. Removing these disparities is one of the greatest challenges of governance", added Mr Meadows. He went on to announce the completion of a joint EU/China study, which will present a comparative analysis of the functioning of regional policies, and which will raise the question of how an effective regional policy can be carried out and other ways of defining the concept of "region". In the view of the former Director-General, "the EU has a lot to learn from the Chinese in terms of the classification of regions". By way of example, he explained that the Chinese had created a third category of regions: "regions in transition".
All of these processes are fully supported by the Committee of the Regions, which is convinced that the regions have a key role to play in the organisation and development of this dialogue. (G. B.)