Inforegio news. N° 175, December 2008.
Date: 2010-01-07
Institutions: Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy
Subjects: information, regional policy, serial publication

inforegio

Newsletter
December 
2008 N° 175

news

EU Baltic Sea Region Strategy – have your say
In the lead-up to the publication of a draft strategy for the Baltic Sea Region at the end of December, 
the Commission invites you to comment and contribute through the consultation website. Set up at the 
start of November the site will run until the end of the year: contributions will be published online.

EN

The strategy will work towards making the region 
environmentally sustainable, prosperous, accessible, 
attractive, safe and secure. With a focus on results 
rather than recommendations, the strategy will be 
transparent and open to critical, public appraisal as 
a reaction to regularly updated information on what 
has happened, what is currently underway and what 
is intended for the future.

The consultation process, as part of the drafting, sees 
the strategy starting as it means to go on, with the 
public being fully informed and invited to have their 
say – from regional and local authorities to anyone 
with an interest in the region. Contributors are asked to 
submit their comments from the standpoint of citizen, 
member of an organisation or of a public authority. 
Questions raised in the consultation document, which 
is available on the site, include:

•	

•	

in terms of (EU) policies, which are more relevant? 
Should some (EU) policies be treated as a higher 
priority than others? (e.g. environnent/maritime 
etc)?

how can the different Baltic Sea markets be encour-
aged to interact more and thus overcome some of 
the problems associated with insufficient internal 
competition?

•	

what are the main remaining barriers for trade in 
the region?

•	

how can better policy design be facilitated? What 
currently hampers better coordination? How can 
this be improved?

The Baltic region faces a series of challenges: the en-
vironment has been degraded and families who have 
spent their summer by the sea for generations can no 
longer allow their children to play in the water. “When 
the temperature rises beyond a certain point, the whole 
thing turns into pea soup”, explained Colin Wolfe, Head 
of Unit at DG REGIO, speaking at the Paris conference on 
the future of Territorial Cohesion. 90% of iron ore comes 
from the north, trade with Russia is growing dramatically 
and the region is not well linked to transport systems. 
Finally, the labour market does not function as well as 
it could, added Wolfe. As things stand, waste water is 
a municipal issue, agricultural run-off a regional issue 
and the environment a national one: “The region needs 
a comprehensive approach with its problems being 
solved in conjunction”, he explained. 

So how is this to be achieved? The consultation docu-
ment asks how funding could be best targeted, how to 
balance the needs of the environment with the region’s 
development and growth and how to organise the 
use of the sea more rationally. Resolving these, and 
the other issues raised, will need as much positive 
input as possible – the area is uniquely complex, being 
surrounded by eight Member States and part of the 
Russian Federation. Your ideas are welcome.

The strategy will be finalised and presented as a Com-
munication to the Council by June 2009; at the same 
time, the programmes’ Managing Authorities will meet 
in Sweden to link the actions set out in the strategy 
to the funding available from the European Regional 
Development Fund. 

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/consultation/
baltic/consultation_en.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/cooperation/
baltic/index_en.htm

Øresund bridge and tunnel linking Denmark to Sweden.

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'Research Potential' to be 
unlocked by 7th Research 
Framework Programme (FP7)

Convergence and outermost regions are 
in line to benefit from the FP7’s ‘Research 
Potential’ funding as the Commission 
announces  two  calls  for  proposals. 
€340 million (2007-13), have been ear-
marked by Member States to develop 
these regions’ research potential to the 
full by supporting, amongst other ele-
ments, the acquisition and development 
of research equipment and boosting 
knowledge transfer activities.

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/dc/index.
cfm 
http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/capacities/
convergence-regions_en.html

URBACT conference – 
navigating the financial chaos 
high on agenda

Representatives from 300 cities met in 
Montpellier as the URBACT annual con-
ference got underway, 1-2 December. 
The annual conference of URBACT, an 
EU programme which fosters exchange 
of knowledge related to sustainable ur-
ban development, brought together 
universities, ERDF and ESF Managing 
Authorities, consultants and other ex-
perts to participate in workshops, site 
visits and evening events in a bid to work 
out a way to tackle increasingly complex 
challenges. A Commission Staff Working 
Paper on urban policy was presented at 
this conference.

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/
sources/docoffic/2007/working/
urban_dimension_en.pdf

Swiss/EU co-operation could go 
still further

A series of meetings in Berne and Lu-
cerne were held as part of the European 
Commissioner for Regional Policy, Danu-
ta Hübner’s official visit to Switzerland, 
earlier in November. The aims of the 
Lisbon Strategy and the EU’s Regional 
Policy programmes are very similar to 
those of Switzerland’s New Regional 
Policy (NRP). The Commission would 
like the NRP to broaden its scope to 
include, for example, the shared use of 
infrastructure in sectors such as health, 
tourism and education. 

http://europa.eu/rapid/
pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/
08/1667&format=HTML&aged=0&lan
guage=EN&guiLanguage=fr 

INTERREG IVC – second call for proposals now open
All those interested in applying for funding under INTERREG IVC have until 15 January to submit their applications as the second 
round of calls gets underway. The co-operation area covered includes all Member States, Norway and Switzerland and priority will 
be given to partnerships which involve regional or local authorities.

A special website has been set up to offer full support to applicants, 
including information about whom to contact locally for advice in 
preparing a response to the call, a series of events such as open days, 
seminars and individual consultations. There is also a partner search 
facility and a new project idea database.

The INTERREG IVC programme sets out to make regional development 
projects more effective and in so doing boost competitiveness. It achieves 
this by helping people pool ideas, matching less experienced with more 
advanced regions and making sure good practice is integrated into 
mainstream programmes. 

The programme is divided into two ‘priorities’: one relates to growth, 
reflecting the Lisbon Strategy, under the theme ‘Innovation and the 
knowledge economy’ and the second to sustainable development, 

reflecting the Gothenburg strategy, expressed as ‘Environment and risk 
prevention’. The scope of the former includes SMEs, human resources, 
education and research and technology; the latter: water management, 
energy and sustainable transport. A complete list is laid out in the pro-
gramme manual, found on the site. The European Regional Development 
Fund contributes a total of €136.9 million to projects falling under priority 
one and €230.8 million to those under priority two.

If you are working out a project that will bring those goals about and are 
interested in funding, take a look at the website which brings a number 
of resources together to help you formulate an application. There is also 
a valuable FAQ section which explains some of the differences between 
this round and previous ones.  

http://www.interreg4c.eu/

Debate on future of cohesion kicks off at Paris conference
Students, Managing Authorities, politicians and people with a desire to see their regions flourish and prosper turned up in their 
hundreds to hear what experts had to say at the conference on Territorial Cohesion and the Future of Cohesion Policy, Paris, 30-
31 October.

The event, held under the auspices of the French presidency, was a 
resounding success if the constant buzz of conversation around the 
halls and the number of questions from the floor were anything to go 
by. Questions on what the word ‘territory’ means, on the relationship 
between co-operation and competitiveness and whether transnational, 
regional co-operation means an erosion of the power of nation states 
proved fertile grounds for discussion. 

Two points emerged upon which consensus seemed clear: cohesion 
funding must not be seen as a ‘fix all’ for the problems created by ill 
thought through sectoral planning and that the word 'territory' should 
be embraced as a means to prompt policy makers to create place-based 
policy, in full consideration of the map, the territory to which the policy 
will apply and what will happen on the ground.

Speaking at a round table summing up, Commissioner for Regional 
Policy, Danuta Hübner explained why the Green Paper on the future 
of Territorial Cohesion has been published now, “The challenges on 
the horizon are such that the modernisation of Territorial Cohesion is 
imperative”.

The December edition of Inforegio’s Panorama magazine, issue 28, 
examines the Green Paper in depth and considers its implications. It 
may be found at the link below.

http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/panora_en.htm

http://www.conference-cohesionue2008.fr 

Please note that this is the last edition of the Inforegio Newsletter in the current monthly format. From January 
2009 onwards, we will send interesting news items in electronic form only, as they become available. We also invite 
you to regularly consult our website http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index_en.htm
If you would like to receive such news, please update your contact data at: http://www.inforegiodoc.eu/
For more information, please email: regio-info@ec.europa.eu

European Commission
Directorate-General for Regional Policy

Text finalised on 26 November 2008

Editor: Raphaël Goulet, European Commission, Regional Policy DG, Unit B1, Fax: +32 2 29-66003. The texts of this publication do not bind the Commission.
Electronic address of the Regional Policy DG on the internet: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/index_en.htm
Commissioner Danuta Hübner: http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/hubner/index_en.htm
Orders for publications: regio-info@ec.europa.eu — This newsletter is published in 22 official languages of the European Union. 
Printed on recycled paper. 
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.