20-21 March Committee of the Regions

Date: 28/03/1996

THE Socialist mayor of Barcelona, Pasqual Maragall, was elected president of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) for a two-year term. Maragall sees the CoR playing a consultative role in strategic areas such as economic and social cohesion, employment, urban policy, major networks and environmental protection.

A NEW era is emerging in the CoR's relations with the European Parliament as the two bodies now look set to work closer together. Maragall declared the CoR's support for the Parliament's claim for observer status at the IGC and pledged the two would campaign “to make good the democratic deficit in the EU”.

IN a bid to raise the Committee's profile, the body will organise a meeting of Europe's regions midway through 1997. Maragall admitted he could not say when or where the event would take place, but insisted the initiative was necessary as the regions were not represented in the IGC. “It would not be a good idea for the IGC to start without this friendly pressure hanging over it. Otherwise it would not be close to reality,” he said.

JACQUES Blanc, the CoR's first president, was elected as senior vice-president. He described the smooth change-over of power as proof of the body's developing maturity and predicted it would eventually become a fully-fledged EU institution.

OPINIONS were adopted on the Commission's Green Paper on innovation, its White Paper on education and training teaching, its communication on integrated management of coastal zones and on new programmes for the Union's least-developed regions.