Economic and political trends (deficits, budget consolidation) indicate that, in the future, all measures that increase the leveraging of public spending will be of growing interest to public policy makers. EU financial engineering instruments are one way of channeling more money into our regions.

This new trend poses many political questions and challenges the traditional “subsidy-oriented” way of supporting territorial development in Europe. In order for its members to get ready for financial engineering AER organised a conference which focused on the challenges and opportunities on these new tools.

Awareness raising & capacity building

The AER Committee 1 Plenary meeting in Republika Sprska (BH), was an opportunity to share experiences from regions in the field of financial engineering.  The main stakes of this shift from grants to loans were explored, on the basis of the first conclusions of an AER consultation among members in the past 9 months. Experts provided an overview of the current EU offer in the field of financial engineering instruments. Two topics where financial instruments have been or may be soon introduced: energy and climate change, and enlargement funds were examined more into detail.

This is a follow-up on the work carried out within the network on Cohesion Policy in general, and more specifically on the exchanges on the challenges and successes Regions experience in terms of funding & financing. The AER Task Force on Cohesion Policy on one hand, and the AER working group on European Funding on the other hand have carried out research within the network on success factors and bottlenecks. This lead to the observation that there was a need for information, training and broader awareness raising on current trends, challenges and opportunities. In this context AER organised a Breakfast Briefing on financial engineering last May, which was followed by a workshop with good practices from Wielkopolska (PL) and Auvergne (FR). AER also provided its members with a Training Academy on financial engineering in June.

The conclusions of the event furthermore fed the work carried out by the Task Force on Cohesion, in preparation the December event “Cohesion Policy: Regions take up the challenge”

Agenda

Presentations