October 27, 2008

Your say on the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion


The European Commission adopted the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion - Turning territorial diversity into strength on 6 October, signaling the start of a major consultation (until 28 February) with regional and local authorities, associations, NGOs, civil society and other organisations, aimed at achieving a better and shared understanding of territorial cohesion (the term is not expressly defined) and its implications for the future. The objective of the process is to trigger debate among stakeholders at all levels on how to balance territorial, economic and social development by focusing on new themes, new sets of relationships binding EU territories at different levels and new forms of cooperation, coordination and partnerships.

Among the issues it hopes to clarify are determining the extent to which new social challenges such as climate policy, energy supply and demographic change should be addressed by EU Regional Policy. The paper sets out a series of initial positions for discussion that suggest that an integrated place-based approach allied with improved coordination with sectoral policies is desirable to achieving sustainable development and providing access to services; that different problems can most appropriately be addressed at different scales and levels of governance from the transnational to local; that partnership approaches with a strong local knowledge dimension to policy formation and implementation are valuable; and that building on the experience of INTERREG in coordinating responses across administrative boundaries is worthwhile.

Green paper and consultation:
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/consultation/terco/index_en.htm

Posted by iroronan at October 27, 2008 07:29 PM