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Assembly of European Regions

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The Regions and sustainable transport: What future for Common Transport Policy?

22 April, 2002 By Editor

The Assembly of European Regions organised a workshop on “The Regions and sustainable transport” on 19th April in Florence, Toscana-I, in the aim of demonstrating the role which the Regions must play in future European transport policy.

Several examples of good regional practices in the field of sustainable transport, and their concrete impact and added value in comparison to European and national initiatives in particular, were looked at by over fifty participants at this workshop. In this context, participating Regions talked of their experience in the implementation of European and national policies and of European programmes (INTERREG IIIB, PHARE, ISPA…), gave their point of view on the advantages and drawbacks of these programmes and current legislation and laid out the content and objectives of the regional policies used towards sustainable development in transport by the Regions.

The President of the “Regional policy, Transport and Tourism” Committee of the European Parliament, Luciano Caveri, spoke on the theme “What future for Common Transport Policy? The European Parliament’s contribution of the definition of new Governance”. “Subsidiarity only currently exists at state level, and it is up to the Convention to give the Regions a real role” he declared. “There will be no sustainable development in any field as long as both local and regional levels of government are not the main actors. The reform of Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) and the incorporation of new routes on these networks requires the involvement of the Regions” he concluded.

Riccardo Conti, coordinator for AER sub-Committee “Sustainable Transport Development and the Environment”, and Assessore for the Region of Toscana, host of the event, stressed that “Common Transport Policy is but an instrument for harmonisation, and the Regions must develop their own transport policies”. He added that “the transport network must allow for sustainable economic development and not simply turn the Regions into transit zones”.

This AER workshop is the first real step towards a long-term strategy aiming to: – bring the attention of national and European authorities to the efficient role of the Regions in the field of transport, – request that the Regions wield the necessary legal and financial means for the implementation of their policies in this field, – encourage the exchange of good practices and experience as well as cooperation between Regions in the EU and Regions in accession countries.

For more information: [email protected]

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A successful step for giving European regions one voice

21 March, 2002 By Editor

 


Linz, Upper Austria (A), 21 March 2002

On 21st March 2002 in Linz (A), the Assembly of European Regions united the Presidents of the European interregional organisations to built up a real common policy. For the first time in many years, these organisations have made a major step in joining their forces to defend and promote the role of the regions in the future of Europe. The Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), the Committee of the Regions (CoR) of the European Union and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities (CLRAE) of the Council of Europe were also actively involved in the debates.

The participants of the Linz Conference decided in particular to invite their respective governments to support the draft European Charter on Regional Autonomy in order to have this text rapidly adopted as an international treaty by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

Convinced that strength can only be achieved through unity, the participants of the Linz Conference decided together as follows:

Governance and the future of Europe

We :

• demand that, alongside with the CoR, the large European representative organisations of local and regional authorities be invited to be heard by the Convention and be directly involved in its activities in order to deal with issues linked to the role of the Regions and local authorities in the EU;

• recommend the drawing up of a Code of Conduct by which the Commission would commit itself to cooperation with the Regions and their representative bodies in the decision-making process, from the consultation process until decisions are taken. This would represent an important step towards real dialogue between the EU, Regions and cities;

• stress that good European governance should be built on representative and participation-based democracy;

• reiterate that the discussion on Governance did not concern further competences, but rather a clear and correct distribution of competences between the Union, the States, the Regions and Local authorities and call for a more precise definition of the distribution of competences between the Union, member States and their Regional and Local authorities in order to enhance democracy, legitimacy of European action and coherence between public policies;

• insist on the possibility of legal control via either a specialised Chamber of the European Court of Justice or a specific organ, when the competence distribution is not respected;

• call for the reinforcement of the role of the Committee of the Regions.

Regional Policy and Cohesion

• with regard to the impacts of the European Unification and the Globalisation, this policy must increasingly encourage a polycentric development of the Community, particularly by means of the EU Community Initiatives;

• such a policy not only requires common objectives, but also the recognition that the diverse socio-cultural basic structures in Europe as well as transeuropean cooperation are the basis for a sustainable economical development;

• the GDP seems to be unsuitable as the only or essential scale for European structural and cohesion policy. A new allocation of European funds should therefore consider the actual competitivity ability of the Regions;

• a harmonisation of the currently different criteria for the individual EU policies (ESDP, Structural Funds, research and innovation) will be possible: key criteria, i.e. GDP and employment, need to be complemented by other relevant factors such as economic structure, innovation, accessibility and workforce skills;

• “Community Initiatives” imply that the EU assumes responsibility for all issues which are of major importance for the Community as a whole and for the future development. This is why INTERREG must continue to cover all parts of Europe and address all types of problems (and not only those of economic nature), which continue to exist or newly arise.

One solution would be to separate community initiatives from the structural funds as from 2007 and to define them as an independent EU task.

Transport networks in Europe

The measures which are suggested in the White Paper on Transport do not meet the increasing need of intermodality and – above all – do not take into sufficient account the transport needs of specific regions and areas.

• Regions have to be recognised as “statutory consultees” of European and national authorities in this field: they already have – to varying degrees – competences for transport planning, public transport provision, road transport infrastructure and maintenance, traffic management and road safety. They usually also have responsibility for the complementary social environmental and land use policies because of their involvement in these fields, Regions must be associated in defining and implementing EU transport policy;

• Due to transport’s huge impact on social, economic and territorial cohesion, Regions should ask that the development of a balanced and integrated transport be a key objective for the future structural funds.

Sustainable agriculture and protection of rural areas

• Multi-functional agriculture must make an essential contribution to environmental conservation and rural planning. These are missions of public interest which must be supported by public funding as the market will not take them into account. The appreciation of these functions and their means of allocation will lay the conditions for sustainable European agriculture in a decisive manner.

• Cohesion, multi-functionality, competitivity and sustainability must represent the foundations of the new model for agriculture. Alongside of quality and food safety standards, these elements could help the future CAP to gain credibility with European tax payers. The idea of quality must be recognised, reinforced and promoted in such as way as to differenciate between agricultural products. The registered origin label is one factor for differenciation and a means of meeting the quality requirements of consumers/citizens : Tradition, quality and safety.

• Europe must protect its wealth of rural landscape, characterised by the great diversity of its Regions. In order to preserve the social and economic importance of the rural world in the European context, the future must make full use of regional potential.

In order to reach these objectives, Regional Authorities which are close to territorial realities must be associated to the drawing up and implementation of future common agricultural and rural policies.

Sustainable development

The European interregional organisations call on the Commission of the EU to declare the period 2003-2012 the European decade for sustainable development and 14th June as European sustainable development day.

For more information: [email protected]

 

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The future of European regional policy: AER Action Plan

6 June, 2000 By Editor

AER Committee C: “Regional Policies, Territorial planning, Infrastructures, Environment, Tourism”

Florence, Tuscany (I), 5-6 June 2000

On 5th and 6th June 2000, the Committee C of the Assembly of European Regions met in Florence, Tuscany (I) at a meeting which was chaired by Mr Brian Greenslade (Devonshire, UK), the Committee President. The meeting was attended by representatives of the citizens of 57 Regions from 17 countries. The meeting considered the regional aspects of a number of key issues affecting the citizens of the European Continent (membership includes Regions both from inside and outside of the EU).

In the past, Committee C has succeeded in promoting the recognition of territorial cohesion as a fundamental principle of the construction of Europe which contributed to making sure that territorial cohesion was included in article 16 (former article 7d) of the European Union Treaty.

Today, the Committee C’s main fields of action cover the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), Sustainable Rural Development, Regional transport and Communications, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) and Environment, without forgetting Regional twinning (or cooperation) and specific matters linked to INTERREG III. The Committee also takes pride in its contribution to the enlargement process.

A multi-national working group has been established in order to draft a report on the AER’s perspective on the future of regional policies and European governance. The group is made up of Regions from Ireland, Italy, Great Britain, Norway, Finland and Romania among others. Their work will be completed by September 2000 (next Committee C meeting in Tulcea, 22nd – 23rd September 2000), in order to present the AER’s contribution to Commissioner Barnier before the adoption of the next EU report on social and economic cohesion.

Under the chairmanship of Mr Hjalmarsson (Norrbotten, Sweden), work is also progressing for the enhancement of the role and the future of regional airports, particularly regarding their contribution to regional economies and the reduction of peripheral areas. This work will include the development of a sub-TEN of regional air transport.

The Committee is developing a network on environment and tourism, coordinated by Västerbotten, which will collect case studies and enable Regions to share their good practices. The President of the Committee, Mr Brian Greenslade, will be seeking the involvement of the Regions in the consultation relating to the review of the transeuropean network and in particular the acknowledgement of the importance of the regional perspective in the development of these networks.

The Committee’s President will also address the EU Commission, on behalf of members, in order to announce the AER’s intention to actively cooperate in the observatory which was recently opened within INTERREG III and in which a number of AER members are interested. The AER will also try to cooperate in this field with other interregional organisations as already agreed in the Conference in Grado, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, I (April 1999).

Finally the quality of the members’ contributions and the direct relevance of the issues on the agenda for the Regions have greatly contributed to the ongoing process of the political relaunch of the AER.

This political movement which promotes regionalism and stimulates cooperation between regional authorities is providing to be, as President Martini of Tuscany (I) said, even more necessary in the interests of the Regions from all over the European Continent.

For more information: [email protected]

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