Move to foster cooperation in regional policy

Date: 18/04/1996

A GROUP of influential Mediterranean policy-makers will gather in Florence next week to pool the latest research on the future of territorial planning.

The seminar, organised jointly by the European Commission, the Committee of the Regions and the Region of Tuscany, is the second in a series of six conferences planned for this year designed to foster a global approach to regional development across the Union.

Speakers will examine the varying priorities for different parts of the Mediterranean and study the problems facing each individual sector in the EU's southernmost area.

Reflecting the move towards finding regional and cross-border solutions to common problems, the seminar will also look at practical examples of interregional cooperation, highlighting research and development opportunities, environmental projects, maritime transport and the integrated development of coastal zones.

This year's six seminars are a direct follow-up to the publication in 1994 of the Europe 2000+ report, the Commission's blueprint for developing European land-use planning policy in a coordinated way. The document aimed to develop cooperation across national boundaries and discourage people from looking at planning issues with a national bias.

But before the debate could be taken further, it was felt that local and regional authorities should be given the opportunity to tell the EU institutions what they believed the priorities should be and how EU regional funds should be spent.

The first seminar on 28 March in France dealt specifically with what the Commission has dubbed the 'Alpine Arc', one of the six groups of EU regions identified as having common characteristics.

Other sessions will deal with regions bordering on Central and Eastern Europe (in Bavaria, on 6-7 May), the Benelux countries (in Maastricht, on 4 June), the North Sea and Baltic areas (in Edinburgh, in September or October) and the 'Atlantic Arc' (in Spain, in October or November).