Brussels, 31/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - In a letter addressed to the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, at the end of March, the president of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR) and the Tuscany Region, Claudio Martini, calls on the European Commission to: - “enable those member states and regions who wish to do so to receive co-financing for the new measures in the Operational Programmes as quickly as possible,, without having to wait for validation by the Commission's services, along the same lines as the measure adopted for major projects”; - “ensure that this early review is carried out in close partnership with the regional authorities when the latter do have the power to undertake the review themselves”; - and ask “as an exceptional measure, for a year-long moratorium on the N+2 rule for the year 2007” (the measure would therefore be applied until 31 December 2010 instead of 31 December 2009, the deadline for spending the structural funds).
“The European regions are today facing what is acknowledged to be 'the crisis'. They are confronted with calls for action on the part of firms - for the most part SMEs well established in their territories - difficulties because of restricted access to funds”, writes Claudio Martini in his letter, before going on to conclude: “Over and above these emergency responses, the Commission must provide an impulse for a collaborative effort at all levels of public authority, to prepare the way for an 'after-crisis' which does not reproduce the growth model of these last decades”.
The CPMR member regions have begun a work of analysis and proposals along these lines. An investigation, based on a questionnaire, is thus being completed by the regions with a view to seeing how they respond to the crisis. The results will be examined during two seminars, the first of which will be held in Brussels in July and the second in Maastricht in November. A full compilation will be given in a manifesto signed by the presidents of the CPMR regions, states CPMR Communication Director Enrico Mayrhofer (http://www.crpm.org ).