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ECR NewsContents

Natural disastersMaking our communities more resilient to disasters and improving the financial disaster aid mechanisms 2

Jobs aNd GrowthCllr David Simmonds on will the Juncker investment package deliver for Europe? 4“Procurement rules can be an instrument to shape local policy on sustainability, innovation and social policy” says Mr Jonkman 5“Challenges created by a company restructuring itself can be handled through local and regional solutions” says Mr Branda 6Unlocking the potential of our seas and oceans for growth and jobs 6Matoniene calls on the EU to prioritise sustainable cities 7“Overcoming mobility challenges in geographically and demographically challenged regions is imperative for growth and jobs” says Cllr Keymer 7

eCr GrouP eVeNtsECR Group extraordinary meeting - Role of local and regional authorities in the EU legislative process: review of the past and a vision for the future 8ECR Group strategic Bureau meeting 8

MeMbers aCtiVitiesStrzyżow District in Poland receives an award for the best use of EU funds 10Arnold Hatch welcomes Commissioner’s support for new Northern Ireland task force 10Arnold Hatch receives 2015 European Entrepreneurial Region Award on behalf of the Northern Ireland Local Government Association 11ECR Group President discusses the need for a competitive EU free of public debt with European Council President 11

This newsletter marks the end of the current Committee of the Regions mandate. Since the creation of the ECR Group in the Committee of the Regions in April 2013, we have made many key achievements. We have successfully voiced the concerns of our local and regional communities and we have used our hands-on experiences that we acquire from implementing most EU legislation. We have done this through our reports (“opinions” in the EU terminology) on key local and regional issues. These have included the opinions addressing natural disasters, achieving sustainable growth in our cities and challenged regions and unlocking the growth potential of our marine and maritime sectors and handling company restructuring.

I would like to thank all of our members for their excellent work not only on the key policy areas but also for their hard work in ensuring that the principle of subsidiarity is being upheld in the EU decision-process and decisions are being taken at the appropriate level of governance. As the Committee of the Regions, we have the specialised task of ensuring that the principle of subsidiarity is upheld. The EU is here to take decisions only when necessary and the CoR is here to ensure that that is the case.

In this edition of our newsletter, you will find articles from our members where they outline how their work during this mandate on the key local issues of natural disasters and a local agenda for growth and jobs can help shape the agenda of the new EU legislative period.

Cllr Gordon Keymer CBE President of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group

Committee of the Region European Union

Committee of the Regions | 6th edition

Newsletter | 6th edition2

NATURAL DISASTERS

Making our communities more resilient to disasters and improving the financial disaster aid mechanisms

ECR Group members have been active in voicing the concerns of the local and regional communities to ensure that our communities are better able to withstand natural disasters in the future and that help comes in a timely and effective manner from the EU when natural do disasters occur.

Natural disasters are a huge threat for Europe. In the last decade, natural hazards and technological accidents caused nearly 100 000 fatali-ties and affected more than 11 million people on the continent.

disaster resilience

Cllr Harvey Siggs

Cllr Harvey Siggs (Leader of Men-dip District Councillor, Member of Somerset County Council and mem-ber of the ECR Group), the Commit-tee of the Regions rapporteur on the “post-2015 Hyogo Framework for Action: managing risks to achieve resilience”, underlined the impor-tance of cooperation at the different levels of governance in preparing our local communities to disasters. In its opinion adopted the CoR un-derlined the need for a focus on pre-vention, preparedness and resilience and underlines the key role of local and regional authorities.

“Building resilience to disasters is a funda-

mental necessity for sustainable growth

and jobs. To effectively tackle the potential-

ly devastating risk of disasters, we must also

think local and act global. Disasters know no borders”, said Cllr Siggs.

The Hyogo Framework is a 10 year inter-national disaster risk reduction plan. The

Long lasting floods experienced in Somerset, UK last winter

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current framework runs till 2015 and a

new Framework is due to be adopted at

the United Nations-led negotiations at the

3rd World Conference on Disaster Risk Re-

duction in Sendai (Japan) on 14-18 March,

2015. Cllr Siggs is due to participate in the

upcoming conference to represent the in-

terest of EU local and regional authorities.

Preparatory and consultative meetings are

taking place in the run up to March 2015. The

second Preparatory meeting took place in Ge-

neva, Switzerland on 17-18 November, 2014.

The current working draft of the new Frame-

work highlights priority areas and outlines

how they can be met.

“The new framework needs to look more at

the risk caused by poor communication and

management, the risk created by trends

such as urban sprawl and urbanisation and

the risk of insurances potentially becoming

unavailable or unaffordable in certain areas as a result of increasing risks.

The responsibility for civil protection is of-ten devolved to the local and regional level without sufficient funds to meet the needs. This needs to change” says Cllr Siggs

Furthermore, Cllr Siggs outlined that “the new framework also needs to recognise that water treatment plants are also an es-sential service that should remain operation during disasters. We also need to recognise the increasing role of mobile technology, the internet and social media in communi-cating disaster information.”

Mr Adam Banaszak

Adam Banaszak (Member of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Regional Assembly, Poland and ECR Group Bureau Member), Committee of the Regions Rapporteur on the EU Civil Protection Mechanism underlined that given the increase in the frequency and number of disasters, preventative action had to be priori-tised.

“We are faced with more frequent disasters. Reactive expenditure is not sustainable in the long term. We have to think ahead. We have to plan well and increase resilience” said Mrs Banaszak.

Regions most likely to experience floods in the future - Source of the map: European Environment Agency

Newsletter | 6th edition4

effective eu response to natural disasters

Mr Pavel Branda

Mr Pavel Branda (Deputy Mayor of Radlo, Czech Republic and member of the ECR Group) was the rapporteur for the Committee of the Regions Opinion on the EU Solidarity Fund at a time when many regions across the EU member states were devastated by floods. His opinion addressed the key reforms needed to increase the

effectiveness of the EU Solidarity Fund (EUSF), which is the EU’s main tool for assisting Member States af-fected by major natural disasters.

“The EU Solidarity Fund is much better equipped to meet the needs of the recent re-vision of the EU Solidarity Fund. It can now be used to build resilience for instance, which is crucial”, explained Mr Branda. He added that “while the Fund was revised in a way that took on-board most of the key proposals we made as the Committee of the Regions, the Fund will need to be further considered in the coming legislative period.”

Among the key challenges faced by local and regional authorities highlighted by the Com-mittee of the Regions was the need to review the deadline for application to the Fund.

“As illustrated by the long lasting floods in the UK, the current deadline for application to the Fund needing to be made 10 weeks after the first damages caused is not realistic. The deadline should be 10 weeks after the last damages are caused. This way, in cases

where disasters last longer than 10 weeks, the Member State has the time to calculate the damages.

Furthermore, the Fund still does not address the challenges faced by local and regional authorities in the case of cross-border dis-asters. “Disasters know no border” stated Mr.  Branda, explaining that “local and re-gional authorities need the assistance they receive to be able to cover the cross-border nature of disasters.” The CoR had asked for the possibility of mobilising the Fund for dis-asters that are regional in nature and cover several countries.

The CoR’s proposal on the extend of the deadline for the use of the Fund was success-fully taken on-board in the revision of the EUSF. The deadline for the use of the Fund is now 18 months. “Even though as the CoR we had called for the extension of the deadline to 24 months, we welcome the compromise as it give more time to local and regional au-thorities to spend the money in line with the sometimes very lengthy public procurement procedures” explained Mr. Branda.

JOBS AND GROWTHThe EU strategy for creating smart sustainable and inclusive growth by the year 2020 (Europe 2020) is currently undergoing a mid-term review. The European Commission is due to present proposals for the review of the strategy. Following this, the strategy is due to be discussed among Member States at the 2015 spring European Council.

Cllr david simmonds on will the Juncker investment package deliver for europe?Article by Cllr David Simmonds (David Leader of Hillingdon London Borough Council and ECR Group member). Cllr Simmonds’ profes-sional background is in finance, where he worked for Lloyds TSB and HSBC after qualifying with the Char-tered Institute of Insurers in 1997.

The announcement by Jean-Claude Juncker of his new investment package, EFSI, has reinvigorated the debate about the role of government in financing public services. Following the European Parliamentary elec-

tions earlier this year, new politicians and commissioners taking their seats in Brussels are looking at a European landscape where the economic situation is moribund, with high levels of public and private debt and a lack of growth. Economists will distinguish between the situations in different member states, with some like the UK showing signs of growth in the private sector, and others like Germany continuing to see stable costs of sovereign debt. Regardless of the national circumstances, the need to get the European economy going again is of importance to all. The risk of stagnation and Eurozone defla-tion poses a risk to the economies of nations not in the zone, and the development of a functional single market requires a levelling up of the economic playing field. The issue Cllr David Simmonds

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of immigration, such a significant factor in the European elections, is a publicly visible symptom of this issue - a single market with free movement of people naturally leads to economic migration, but for many people, opportunities close to home would be pref-erable. So the question is, will the Juncker package deliver for Europe?

The first challenge is likely to be moving the debate to a shared understanding of what we mean by ‘investment’ after decades of left-wing politicians describing all forms of public spending as ‘investment’. By prioritis-ing infrastructure, Juncker clearly buys the argument that putting money into public works generates private profit that can then be taxed, bringing about a real return to the taxpayer who currently faces huge levels of government debt. The practical reality of this

will require a rigorous business-like approach to project funding and the decision to make the fund one that seeks to lever in private finance is helpful provided governments do not subsequently underwrite the risks associ-ated with the projects. Nationalising the debt and risk is essentially just socialist redistribu-tion by another name and financially disas-trous, as many EU Member States’ economies are currently finding having pursued this line for financing many activities already.

The second challenge is going to be ensur-ing that as the project pipeline develops and the assistance programme kicks in, that we do not fall into the trap of seeing EFSI as an extra-national subsidy for unviable national projects. Good intentions at EU level risk be-ing translated at national, regional or local level into seeing EFSI as simply an alternative

source of borrowing that will ultimately fall to the taxpayer rather than generating a real return. Ensuring that the bureaucracy around the funds does not lead into a confusion of red tape where profits are made by account-ants, consultants and lawyers at the expense of taxpayers but no-one else is key.

Europe remains the largest and wealthiest economic bloc in the work. The risk is that in the absence of growth, we fall to taxing diminishing wealth in order to prop up un-sustainable levels of public spending. This short term solution, so favoured by the left, is inevitably doomed - as the saying goes, ‘the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of someone else’s money’. With the Juncker plan due to be in action by 2015, we need to ensure that it is based on sound finances.

“Procurement rules can be an instrument to shape local policy on sustainability, innovation and social policy” says Mr JonkmanThe new ECR Group member Rob Jonkman (Alderman of Opster-land municipality, Netherlands) has a vast knowledge in the area of on state aid and public procurement.

In the past couple of years Mr Jonk-man represented all Dutch mu-nicipalities during the negotiations on the EU procurement directives. At the moment he is a member of the Board of Europa Decentraal, a knowledge centre for local and regional governments in the field of procurement and state aid. He combines this role with the internal market portfolio for which he is re-sponsible in the national association of municipalities.

Once regarded as the domain of legal spe-cialists, public procurement is of growing importance for politicians too. “Procurement rules are not merely about purchasing goods and services, but can also be an instrument to shape local policy on sustainability, innovation and social policy” notes Mr Jonkman.

With the growing influence of EU policy on local politics, it is important to keep an eye on the balance of power. Mr Jonkman sees an important role for the ECR Group in this respect, especially regarding the principle of subsidiarity. “EU rules on procurement have to leave enough room for public authorities and companies to close the contracts they need and take into account local circumstances. We do not need unnecessary details on EU level that will only cause red tape” said Mr Jonkman.

Simplification and reduction of administrative burdens were key messages for Mr Jonkman during the negotiations of the public procure-ment directives. “We tried to bring companies and municipalities back at the heart of public procurement policy, instead of lawyers. This will also remain our focus during the imple-mentation process next year. National gold-plating in this perspective will be unaccepta-ble”, stated Mr  Jonkman.

Mr Jonkman will use his experience on pub-lic procurement to participate in the ECR Group work on other internal market dossiers. Mr Jonkman concluded that “it is important to take part in the European debate at an early

stage. The EU institutions do not know the re-ality on the ground. We are the level closest to companies and citizens and can add that di-mension to the European debate.”

Ald Rob Jonkman

Newsletter | 6th edition6

“Challenges created by a company restructuring itself can be handled through local and regional solutions” says Mr branda

Mr Pavel Branda

Pavel Branda (Deputy Mayor of Ra-dlo, Czech Republic and member of the ECR Group), is the Committee of the Regions rapporteur on “EU Qual-ity Framework for anticipation of change and restructuring”, which looks at the practices for anticipat-ing company restructuring and min-imising their impact on workers and social conditions.

Mr Branda underlined the impor-tance of providing LRAs with the

right resources to facilitate the tran-sition of young people from educa-tion into employment, given that local authorities in particular often have a role as service providers in education and training. He also un-derlined the importance of cross-border labour mobility for jobs and growth.

The European Commission has proposed best practices to reduce the social impact of company restructuring. Specific meas-ures include continuing mapping of jobs and skills needs and measures for individual employees, such as training, career counsel-ling and assistance to facilitate professional transition. It also includes the involvement of external actors at an early stage, such as public authorities, universities and supply chain. Furthermore, it includes making full use of EU Structural Funds like the European Social Funds and the European Globalisa-tion adjustment Fund in relevant regions in order to promote job creation and inclusive transitions in the period of restructuring.

The Commission will monitor the applica-tion of the Quality Framework, which is vol-untary, and will report by 2016 on whether further action is necessary in this area, including a possible legislative proposal.

Mr Branda underlined that “the Commission should cooperate with all interested stake-holders when evaluating the Quality Frame-work implementation.”

“Local and regional authorities can help fa-cilitate the right balance being achieved in the labour market between supply and de-mand. They can do this through education and training and making mobility easier” noted Mr Branda.

On education and training, Mr Branda ex-plained that “local and regional authorities often provide education and training ser-vice and in turn, can help ensure that the education and training system matches the needs of the labour market.”

On the topic of mobility, Mr Brand ex-plained that “mobility can help balance supply and demand. There is often a greater demand in certain regions for specific type of skills depending. Different regions often specialise in different sectors and different industries. As local and regional authorities, we must try to reduce barriers to mobility and facilitate the exchange of information on job opportunities among ourselves. True cross-border labour mobility is crucial for inclusive and sustainable growth and job creation.”

unlocking the potential of our seas and oceans for growth and jobs

Mr Adam Banaszak (Member of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Regional Assembly and ECR Group Bureau Member), is the Committee of the Regions rapporteur on “innovation in the Blue Economy: realising the potential of our seas and oceans for growth and jobs.”

Mr Banaszak’s opinion, supported by all NAT Commission members, addresses the role that innovation can play in unlocking the potential

of our “blue” economy (our marine and maritime sectors) for the sus-tainable creation of growth and jobs. “The blue economy plays a crucial role in securing sustainable growth and jobs” noted Mr. Banaszak high-lighting that it “represents roughly 5.4  million jobs and generates a gross added value of almost €500 billion a year.”

The opinion makes 4 key recommendations. It recommends the development of clearly defined performance indicators for growth and innovation in the blue economy. It reit-erates the previous call made by the CoR in its opinion on Blue Growth for which Mr Ba-naszak was rapporteur, for the drawing up Mr Adam Banaszak

7

plans for the removal of military material leftovers and chemical waste dumped at sea. The opinion also calls for the creation of a specific Knowledge and Innovation Com-munity for the Blue Economy. Furthermore,

it calls for an enhanced policy framework

for the inclusion of the private sector.

“Our growth strategy in the EU has to truly

unlock the potential of our different sectors

if it is to yield the results that we need. Our marine and maritime sectors have huge potential. For this, we must pave the way for greater private sector involvement and greater innovation” said Mr Banaszak.

Matoniene calls on the eu to prioritise sustainable cities

Ms Daiva Matonienė (Vice-Min-ister of Environment of Lithuania, member of Šiauliai City Council and Vice-President of the ECR Group), the Committee of the Regions rap-porteur on sustainable cities, un-derlined the need to ensure that the new legislative period marked a holistic and sustainable approach to the development of EU cities.

“The mid-term review and possible revision of the EU growth strategy presents a key oppor-tunity to ensure that the EUs growth strategy prioritises a sustainable approach to the de-velopment of our cities,” said Ms  Matoniene noting that “urban development cannot be achieved without a sustainable approach to

the development of our cities.”

Approximately 70% of citizens in the EU live in towns and cities and that by 2020 it is ex-pected that 80% of Europeans will live in cit-ies or city suburbs. “Most of our citizens live in cities or live in suburbs or towns that are close enough to the cities for them to feel the impact of unsustainable practise. We need to ensure that our cities provide a healthy and disaster resilient environment. This is crucial for sustainable growth”, said Ms Matoniene.

On what sustainable cities meant in practice, Ms Matoniene explained that “achieving sus-tainable cities requires a holistic approach that addresses environmental protection and the social and economic problems of cities, as well as addressing how cities can build re-silience to disasters.”

“overcoming mobility challenges in geographically and demographically challenged regions is imperative for growth and jobs” says Cllr Keymer

Cllr Gordon Keymer CBE (Leader of Tandridge District Council and Presi-dent of the ECR Group), as the Com-mittee of the Regions rapporteur on “mobility in geographically and de-mographically challenged regions”, underlined the importance of ensur-ing that the EU growth strategy ad-

ECR Group workshop Chaired by Cllr Keymer on mobility in geographically and demographically challenged regions

Ms Daiva Matonienė

Cllr Gordon Keymer

Newsletter | 6th edition8

dresses the challenges faced by geo-graphically and demographically challenged regions. “The EU growth strategy is undergoing a mid-term review. Part of this review must be to look at how best to ensure growth and jobs in challenged regions. This is crucial for our territorial cohesion” said Cllr Keymer. “As we saw in the workshop we organised, where approximately 100 practitioners and policy-makers participated, the EU needs a renewed strategy for inclusive growth. Our geographically and demographically chal-lenged regions are not sufficiently being

taken into account in EU policies. We need a Green paper on mobility so that this impor-tant subject can be fully explored and ad-dressed in the full range the EU policies and programmes” said Cllr Keymer.

Following on from the opinion produced on the topic where the CoR called for a Green Paper on mobility, the ECR Group organised a workshop on mobility in geographically and demographically challenged regions. This workshop was organised as part of the annual Committee of the Regions’ Open Days (a European week of regions and cities).

”Remoteness of certain regions brings signif-icantly increased risk of economic and social

exclusion” noted Cllr Keymer, emphasising that “this threatened the territorial cohesion of the EU.” Cllr Keymer further noted that “improving transport is essential for improv-ing the economic and social opportunities of these regions.”

In terms of what is mean by “challenged re-gions”, Cllr Keymer explained that the term was used by the CoR to describe “moun-tainous, island, sparsely populated, outer-most and similarly disadvantaged regions.” Cllr Keymer added that “there is no adequate definition elsewhere, which illustrates the degree to which these regions are not suf-ficiently taken into account.”

ECR GROUP EVENTS

eCr Group extraordinary meeting - role of local and regional authorities in the eu legislative process: review of the past and a vision for the future

The European Conservatives and Re-formists Group in the Committee of the Regions held its extraordinary Group meeting on 28 October in Brussels. The Group members dis-cussed the role of local and regional authorities in the EU decision- making process and agreed on a roadmap for how the CoR could best upload their local and regional expertise.

The ECR Group members called for a CoR that focused its activities more on achieving impact in the EU decision-making process through its consultative role as outlined in the EU Treaties. The Group members also called for the CoR to further develop its ac-tivities on its specialised task on ensuring compliance with the principle of subsidi-arity. The members underlines that subsidi-arity is a key principle that is there to ensure that decisions are taken at the appropriate level of governance and to ensure that the EU steps in only when necessary. “Subsidi-

arity is a key pillar of good governance” said ECR Group President, Cllr Keymer.

Speakers who presented their views on the role of local and regional authorities and the key issues in the new EU legislative period included Dan Hannan MEP (Secretary Gen-

eral, Alliance of European Conservatives and

Reformists), Dr Jorge Nunez Ferrer (Associ-

ate Research Fellow, Centre for European

Policy Studies) and Rory O’Donnell (UK Per-

manent Representation, Regions, agricul-

ture, and fisheries section).

eCr Group strategic bureau meetingThe ECR Group Bureau held a strategic meeting in London on 4 November 2014 to discuss local and regional priorities and how they could best be voiced in the EU. Among the

guest speakers were Geoffrey-Clifton Brown MP (Vice-President of the Alli-ance of European Conservatives and Reformists and Chairman of the Con-servative Party’s International Office)

From left to right: Pavel Branda, Cllr Harvey Siggs, Adam Banaszak, Robert Godek, Daniel Hannan MEP, Cllr Gordon Keymer CBE, Ilpo Haalisto, Cllr David Simmonds and Bronislovas Liutkus

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Cllr Roger Evans (Chairman of the London Assembly and member of the ECR Group in the CoR) and Pawel Swidlicki (Research Analyst at Open Europe).

The points raised included the need to in-crease the EUs competitiveness through cutting red tape, completing the EU single market and the need to decentralise pow-ers in the EU. The need to move away from a “one size fits all” approach in the EU and the need to have a more flexible approach that would enable local solutions to be found to local problems was also underlined. Furthermore, the meeting touched on the

need to curb corruption and the misuse

of EU funds as well as the need to address

transportation challenges and the EUs im-

migration challenge.

Better EU governance and the CoRs role in delivering this was a key theme

“Local authorities have a key role to play in

the EU decision-making process. We provide

consultation to the legislating bodies and act

as the guardians of the principle of subsidi-

arity. Subsidiarity is the principle that ensures

decisions are taken at the appropriate level of

governance. It is the tool to ensure that Brus-

sels steps in only when necessary,” stated Cllr  Gordon Keymer CBE, (ECR Group Presi-dent/Leader of Tandridge District Council).

Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Committee of the Regions was given the specialised task of monitoring com-pliance with the principle of Subsidiarity. The

Committee of the Regions has the power to

take action against an infringement of sub-

sidiarity through the Court of the Justice of

the EU. The Court of Justice of the European

Union has jurisdiction in actions on grounds

of infringement of the principle of subsidi-

arity by a legislative act.

From the left to right: Ms Daiva Matonienė, Mr Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Cllr Roger Evans, Cllr Gordon Keymer CBE, Cllr Kay Twitchen OBE

Seminar discussion

Cllr Gordon Keymer CBE on left and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP on right

Newsletter | 6th edition10

MEMBERS ACTIVITIES

strzyżow district in Poland receives an award for the best use of eu funds

Mr Robert Godek

In the ranking of the best use of EU funds Strzyżow District (poviat) is on the first place in Podkarpacie Region and 5th place in Poland. It received also a distinction in category of in-vestment expenses for technical in-frastructure (10th place in Poland for approximately 380 Counties). The

results of rankings prepared by “Wspólnota” magazine have been presented on XII Local Governments Forum on Capital and Finances held in Warsaw 1-2 October 2014.

Robert Godek (Leader of Strzyżowski Dis-trict and member of the ECR Group) said “it is pleasing to see that our local government has ranked so well among Polish coun-ties and has delivered good services to our citizens. The local government of Strzyżow District has been focusing on the best use of external funds and commitment to meet the needs of our Counties citizens.”

Explaining the local projects that the Funds helped deliver, Mr Godek said that “from the external money we received, which was usually combined with resources from our own budget and sometimes carried out jointly with local municipalities from our area, we rebuilt many sections of roads in each municipality. We also improved the load-bearing capacity of most bridges and removed most of the negative results of landslides on our roads. Education and

healthcare entities including our hospital in Strzyżów, social institutions, our youth, the unemployed and handicapped people ben-efited from our projects.”

Mr. Godek further added that “the high ranking we have received from the local government magazine in Strzyżów, ‘Wspól-nota’, is the result of the hard work of many people including members of the Country board, councillors of the District, employees of our entities, cooperating individuals and companies, and everybody who is engaged for the realisation of our projects. I would like to thank them all.”

Local government’s magazine “Wspólnota”, together with Prof Paweł Swianiewicz (Head of Department of Local Development and Policy at the Department of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Warsaw) and his team, prepare annual rankings in many categories. The categories include current expenses on administration, the richest lo-cal governments, investment in technical infrastructure and the use of EU funds.

arnold hatch welcomes Commissioner’s support for new Northern ireland task force

ECR Group member, Alderman Arnold Hatch (Northern Ireland Lo-cal Government Association (NILGA) Vice-President and Member of the ECR Group) spoke following the Eu-ropean Parliament meeting, which debated support for the Northern Ireland peace process on the 12th November 2014.

Welcoming Commissioner for the Regions, Ms Corina Cretu’s commitment on the con-tinuation of the Northern Ireland Task Force in the new Commission, Ald Hatch said: “Evaluations of the European programmes have shown a very positive impact on the ground, both in Northern Ireland and the

border counties of Ireland. The programmes have materially benefitted almost two mil-lion people, bringing divided communities together, helping to rebuild trust, and lay-ing the ground work for a shared future”.

“The Task Force set up under outgoing President of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, provided opportunities for the re-gion to grow and create jobs across the EU policy spectrum. As a region we must prac-tically realise these with the new Commis-sion through the emergence of a new Task Force – to deliver continued growth for our communities and local businesses.”

Mr. Hatch and NILGA seek to invite Com-mission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, to visit the region to witness the impact of the Commission’s support during the European Entrepreneurial Region Award year of 2015,

which has been won by the Association with support from Invest NI.

Ald Arnold Hatch

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arnold hatch receives 2015 european entrepreneurial region award on behalf of the Northern ireland local Government association

Alderman Arnold Hatch, (Vice-President of the Northern Ireland Local Government Association and ECR Group member) received the 2015 European Entrepreneur-ial Region Award on behalf of the Northern Ireland Local Government Association.

“It is a great honour to be recognised for our entrepreneurial work. Bringing business and research and innovative solutions for-ward is key to achieving sustainable growth and creating jobs” said Arnold Hatch. He added that “Northern Ireland’s entrepre-neurs will sustain our economies, whether these are film makers, artisan bakers, micro brewers, bus and coach manufacturers, or medical technology specialists. If we give them support, Northern Ireland has a bright future with jobs, growth and prosperity re-placing conflict. EER gives us focus and mo-tivation. Our work plan will be testimony to Northern Ireland’s enterprise and our untir-ing work ethic”, said Ald Hatch.

The EER award aims to promote dynam-

ic, green and entrepreneurial regions in

Europe. It is given to the region with the

most convincing entrepreneurial vision on

contributing to the implementation of the

Small Business Act for Europe and making

optimal use of public funding, irrespective

of their size, wealth and competences.

eCr Group President discusses the need for a competitive eu free of public debt with european Council President

Cllr Gordon Keymer CBE (leader of Tandridge District Council and President of the ECR Group) met the President of the European Council in the run-up to the Council meeting where the European Commission is due to present its initiative to mobi-lise 300 billion Euros of investment.

Cllr Keymer underlined that “stimu-lating growth through public debt is not sustainable” and called for a lo-cal approach to growth.

On 21 November, ECR Group President Cllr  Gordon Keymer, participated in a Con-ference of Presidents meeting with Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European

Council. The meeting took place following

the 18-19 General Affairs Council (GAC) meet-

Ald Arnold Hatch

2015 European Entrepreneurial Region Awards

Follow us on @ECR_CoR

ing of Ministers, which aimed to prepare the 18-19 December European Council meeting that will be attended by the Heads of State and Government. During the GAC meeting, the EU cohesion policy was discussed.

“For smart, inclusive and sustainable growth, we need a local agenda for growth. We need local projects delivered through private sec-tor involvement and innovative partner-ships. Public-private partnerships can deliver competitiveness but they need to have well

defined areas and agreed goals. What is un-

sustainable is trying to stimulate growth

through public debt” said Cllr Keymer.

In terms of specific local projects, Cllr Keymer

outlined that mobility projects were needed

for challenged regions. Cllr Keymer explained

that “mobility in challenged regions needs to

be better recognised and addressed. Mobility

in challenged regions undermines the terri-

torial cohesion of the EU”.

Furthermore, Cllr Keymer underlined that the full correct and timely implementa-tion of EU legislation is also key for the EUs growth stategy. “The full, correct and timely transposition of the new European public procurement on innovative partnerships is crucial. The changes were made earlier this year and will be implemented in Member States by early 2016. Local and regional au-thorities will play a crucial role in their trans-position”, said Cllr Keymer.

MEETINGS CALENDAR

MEETING PLACE DATE

CFAA BRUSSELS 20 JANUARY

1st BUREAU MEETING OF THE NEW MANDATE BRUSSELS 11 FEBRUARY

1st PLENARY SESSION OF THE NEW MANDATE BRUSSELS 12-13 FEBRUARY

From left to right – Mr Uno SILBERG, President of the EA Group; Cllr Gordon KEYMER, President of the ECR Group; Mr. Michael SCHNEIDER, President of the EPP Group; Mr. Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the European Council; Mr. Michel LEBRUN, President of the Committee of the Regions; Mr. Karl-Heinz LAMBRECHT, President of the PES Group; Ms. Agnès DURDU, First Vice-president of the ALDE Group