Brussels, 01/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - The French Presidency of the European Union, in partnership with the Committee of the Regions (CoR) the European Commission and the Association of French Regions (ARF), is holding a conference on territorial cohesion and the future of cohesion policy in Paris on 30-31 October. Over these two days, stakeholders in territorial policy and cohesion policy, structural fund managers and representatives of civil society from the 27 EU member states will discuss all aspects of the issue with a view to producing proposals for implementing the territorial agenda.
French Secretary of State for Spatial Planning Hubert Falco will open the conference on 30 October. Other speakers will be European Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, Slovenian Environment and Spatial Planning Minister Janez Podobnik, Chairman of the European Parliament regional development committee (REGI) Gerardo Galeote, CoR President Luc van den Brande and ARF President Alain Rousset.
A session devoted to territorial cohesion in the major policies will comprise four workshops focussing on (1) the CAP and the rural development policy, (2) sustainable development (climate change), (3) the Lisbon process, and (4) governance and integrated territorial development. Xavier Gizard, Secretary General of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), will present a summary of these workshops on 31 October. There will be two round table discussions. The first will be devoted to territorial cohesion, and taking part will be European Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, French Inter-ministerial Delegate for Territorial Planning and Competitiveness Pierre Dartout, rapporteur on the Green Paper on territorial cohesion for the EP REGI committee Lambert Van Nistelrooij, rapporteur on the Green Paper on territorial cohesion for the CoR territorial cohesion policy commission (COTER) and Eurocities President Jean-Yves Le Drian and Andreas Faludi, Professor at Delft University, Netherlands, a specialist in European territorial political systems. The second will focus on the future of cohesion policy with Danuta Hübner, Pierre Dartout, Michel Delebarre CoR First Vice-President, Jan Olbrycht, member of the EP REGI committee, Claudio Martini, President of the CPMR, and Mario Pezzoni of the OECD. Concluding remarks will be by Danuta Hübner and Hubert Falco.
In continuing the debate on the future of the cohesion policy that was opened by the 4th Cohesion Report, just prior to the publication of the Commission's Green Paper on territorial cohesion (at the start of October 2008) and in anticipation of the informal meeting of European spatial planning ministers in Marseilles on 23-24 November, this conference is an important event in the European debate on cohesion policy and territorial cohesion. For information go to: http://www.conference-cohesion2008.fr (G.B./transl.rt)