Launched in the frame of the 15th European Week of Regions and Cities in Brussel, the Cohesion Alliance has been designed to be the strongest and most effective cohesion policy for all regions, beyond 2020. On October 11th, over 150 high-level representatives of the European territorial associations, regional policy practitioners and experts, discussed the further steps to take for enhancing the Cohesion Alliance which currently is worth one-third of the EU budget.
The meeting provided an opportunity to discuss some of the key ideas which emerged during the workshops on the future of EU Cohesion policy. Furthermore, several needs emerged in order to strengthen what is considered to be a pillar of EU’s future: the importance of responding to the needs of citizens locally;the need to keep citizens at the centre of future Cohesion Policy; the need to respond to territorial development challenges with place-based policy responses; improved implementation of Cohesion Policy in order to achieve its aims more effectively; the importance of maintaining and relaunching successfully Cohesion Policy.
The discussion was also joined by Michael Schneider, CoR rapporteur on the Future of Cohesion policy beyond 2020 (DE/EPP) and Marc Lemaître, Director-General DG REGIO, European Commission.
Euroregion Baltic has supported the stronger EU Cohesion Policy in a joint position paper adopted by the Executive Board in September 2017.