As negotiations over the EU’s 2014-2020 budget move forward, the Danish EU presidency is being criticised in Parliament for paying little attention to regional policy in Europe’s future financial framework.
The EU’s next budget is likely to include the first-ever binding document setting “stronger” and “clearer” objectives for regional funds to support sustainable development.
Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn yesterday (11 January) said Hungary is the sole country on the Commission’s excessive deficit ‘caution list’ and warned that cohesion funds could be frozen it if fails to trim its deficit.
Governments representing some of Europe’s best-known industrial regions have joined together to put added muscle behind efforts to reduce pollution and to press the European Commission for more flexible air quality laws.
The European Commission is expected to provide significantly more money for regional environmental and climate projects under proposals scheduled to be unveiled on Monday (12 December).
Bulgaria, the poorest EU country, feels cheated by by a new proposal to be adopted by the Council on 12 December, under which six member states will be able to co-finance projects at a much lower percentage than the rest of the bloc.
Over 3,000 mayors teamed up yesterday (30 November) in efforts to demonstrate that energy efficiency targets could be implemented through a bottom-up approach, despite stagnating talks on a proposed EU energy efficiency directive.
Athens will need technical assistance to ramp up its capacity to absorb EU regional funding, the Greek Minister for Development, Competition and Shipping, has told the European Parliament.
The European Commission's proposals that urge member states to invest part of their regional development fund on low-carbon and energy-efficiency measures sounds very encouraging, argues to Markus Trilling of the CEE Bankwatch Network. The question that remains though is whether these proposals will be sufficient enough to secure the conditions for a sustainable regional development.
The European Commission has unveiled yesterday (6 October) its blueprint for the next generation of EU cohesion funds after 2013, under which it will be able to suspend funding if member states flout budget rules or breach the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact.
Local representatives and energy solution providers have called on the EU to pay attention to rural areas' energy needs and help them move towards less carbon-intensive energy solutions.
Clean energy projects in rural areas are still being held back by administrative burdens, one year after EU member states began implementing their National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs), EurActiv has learned. However, Brussels believes the situation is improving.
The European oil industry rang the alarm yesterday (20 September) on the impact of EU energy efficiency legislation on oil refining activities, warning of the end of the sector in Europe.
Greece pledged to bring forward painful austerity measures yesterday (20 September), convincing international lenders to return to Athens early next week for talks that it hopes will secure the aid it needs to avert bankruptcy.
The European Commission said yesterday (20 September) it is unaware that local authorities in Hungary are putting Roma to work under programs reminiscent, according to the opposition, to labour camps under Nazi or Soviet domination.
The European Union and China could start talks as early as next month for the first pan-European investment pact with a foreign power, the EU's top trade official said yesterday (20 September).
Asking for labour market reform to spur competitiveness, BusinessEurope says it has identified a number of ready-to-use actions that could bring Europe back to work and lead the 27-country bloc closer to its strategic goal of raising the employment rate from 68 to 75%.
Polish rural communities largely depend on low-cost but dirty coal for their heating, but under pressure from Brussels to provide cleaner energy, Warsaw is proposing controversial shale gas wells as an alternative.
Poland is trying to broker a face-saving deal for Romania's and Bulgaria's accession to the European Union's borderless Schengen area. Under the compromise the two countries would first have barriers at airports and maritime ports removed, while maintaining land restrictions until after the French elections, diplomats told EurActiv.
Standard and Poor's cut its unsolicited ratings on Italy by one notch, warning of a deteriorating growth outlook and damaging political uncertainty, in a move that took markets by surprise and added to pressure on the debt-stressed eurozone.
The ongoing trial against Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is not political and EU circles should not link this issue to a possible freezing of negotiations on the Free Trade Area Agreement, said Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.
Helping young people to become entrepreneurs starts at school, where companies have a role to play in coaching students to get the skills required to succeed and compete in the world economy, argues Brian Ager, secretary-general of the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), in an interview with EurActiv.
President Barack Obama's chief climate change negotiator has issued a warning over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, casting doubt on a key plank of international climate talks this December in South Africa.
While the EU is marred by a severe debt crisis and a lackluster economic recovery, schools and companies are trying to make the changes necessary to adapt the workforce to new challenges and increase entrepreneurship and competitiveness.
Political and financial support is needed from the EU to help rural areas develop renewable energies at local level such as biomass and small hydro, according to Euromontana, an association representing Europe's mountainous regions.
France's regions are defending a stronger EU regional policy budget, pitting themselves against Nicolas Sarkozy's government which would prefer to reduce the bloc's so-called 'cohesion' spending in favour of the Common Agricultural Policy. EurActiv France reports.
The European Commission has decided to lower the proportion by which EU-sponsored projects require co-financing to help Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Latvia and Hungary, which have all benefited from different forms of bailouts in recent years.
European efforts to increase energy efficiency have so far primarily focused on measures to improve end-use efficiency, and the potential to reduce huge losses that occur in the production and delivery of power have largely been ignored.
According to a new survey, the mayors of rural France overwhelmingly want very high-speed Internet coverage made available to their towns long before the French government's current plans would allow. EurActiv France reports.
Political and financial support is needed from the EU to help rural areas develop renewable energies at local level such as biomass and small hydro, according to Euromontana, an association representing Europe's mountainous regions.
A landmark €265 million fund to kickstart European energy efficiency projects was launched on 1 July after protracted negotiation between EU member states. Touted as “market-based” on Britain's insistence, the fund has only raised €5 million from the private sector, EurActiv has learned.
As the budget debate begins, cohesion policy remains critical to creating the infrastructure that Central and Eastern European EU members need to unleash their full potential for growth and convergence with the rest of the Union, argues Hendrik Bourgeois of General Electric.
France scored a provisional victory in the battle for the EU's long-term budget last week when the European Commission proposed to leave support for farmers broadly unchanged until 2020. A deal with Germany on regional funds appears to be the key to France's success.
Almost simultaneously, the European Commission and Poland, the country currently holding the EU's rotating presidency, published similar papers highlighting the benefits of cohesion policy for Europe's economic growth.
Policymakers in the EU institutions, national governments and regional authorities are fighting for control over Europe's future regional policy spending after the European Commission last week tabled budget plans for the post-2013 seven-year period.
Romania is largely unable to take advantage of the billions of euro in EU financing available for the country's economic development, a think-tank has warned, and only 3.4% of the money is actually spent. EurActiv Romania reports.
French regional leaders have urged EU policymakers to maintain cohesion funding at current levels or risk throwing Europe back into recession.
Romanian centre-right MEP Petru Constantin Luhan argues that cohesion funds, distributed on the basis of a region's lower GDP per head, should continue to be used to promote solidarity and competitiveness within the EU.
Paving the way for an “ambitious” agreement on the 2014-2020 budget, energy security and the European Union's Eastern neighbourhood are all key priorities of the Polish EU Presidency during the second half of 2011. The Poles, for their part, have pulled all the stops to ensure that the Union remains committed to redistributive policies at a time of economic austerity.
The European Commission is mulling a plan to directly manage regional funds in Greece, Bulgaria and Romania as the countries' administrations are currently incapable of doing so themselves, said German-Greek liberal MEP Jorgo Chatzimarkakis in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.