| : Καλησπέρα, όλοι, και καλώς ήρθατε στο ίδιο επεισόδιο της Ευρωπαϊκής Αυγής στην Βρυσόλυση. Είμαστε πιεσμένοι για τη συμβουλή της συζήτησης για την Ευρωπαϊκή Πολιτική Πολιτική Προσοχή και για τις στρατηγικές δραστηριότητες της Ευρωπαϊκής Πολιτικής Προσοχής ως μέρος της Ευρωπαϊκής Προσοχής της Ευρωπαϊκής Βρυσόλυσης, μαζί με τους συμβουλούς μας από την Πλανδάνσκη, την Άμβρια, την Χίγελβερκ και την Πελοπινή. Συγκεκριμένα, θα ήθελα να ευχαριστήσω τον Νίκολο Σπρουξ, Επιτροπή Πολιτικής Προσοχής, την Επιτροπή Πολιτικής Προσοχής της Ευρωπαϊκής Πολιτικής Προσοχής, για την συμβουλή της συζήτησης σήμερα, που Síleı να μιλήσουν και να μιλήσουν της συζesus εσεiku這一 εκτερική συζήτηση. Συγκεκριμένα θα θέλαμε να διακλ� και να μιλήσουν από τις περιοχές μας για να μιλήσουν για την εμπορική εμπορική εμπειρία τους. Και να εμπορήσουν τις περιοχές να εξελίξουν και να εμπνεύσουν είναι σημαντικό για την εργασία της ΕΕ. Και εγώ περιμένω να ακούσω για το πώς αυτός έκανε σήμερα στις περιοχές μας. Και θα ήθελα να παρακολουθώ στον κυβερνητή μας και για το εμπόριο. Ευχαριστώ πολύ. Ευχαριστώ πολύ. Ευχαριστώ για την παρακολουθήκα. Ονομάζομαι Νίκολος Μπρουκκς. Είμαι διευθυντής εμπορικής εμπορικής εμπειρίας της ΕΕ. Και θα είμαι ο κυβερνητής για σήμερα. Αυτή η εργασία είναι σχετικά για την εμπορική εμπειρία και τις δημιουργικές εμπορικές στρατηγίες στην εμπορική εμπειρία. Και πιστεύω ότι αυτός είναι το καλό χρόνο για να μιλήσουμε για αυτές τις εμπορικές εμπειρήσεις. Όπως μπορείτε ή δεν μπορείτε να γνωρίζετε, 18 μήνες έχουν περάσει since the European Commission made its proposal for the future of creation policy for the post-2020 period. And we've reached the stage where the Parliament and the Council are now, they've reached their own positions on aspects of the policy and they're now negotiating the package in earnest. But we're not here to talk about the negotiations and the EU budget and the future. We're here to talk precisely about aspects of the new current policy package that are linked to urban policy. We're here to take stock of some of the approaches that are being developed, that have been developed in the current period. And this is precisely why we have five regional panellists to talk about these various issues in a moment and I'll introduce them a little bit later. So coming back to the post-2020 creation policy package, I think from our own perspective at the CPMR we've always said that the package was more of an evolution rather than a revolution. Our take on the creation policy legislative package and the various aspects of it was that the Commission did very well in basically keeping the tools or provisions that worked well in the current period, like the ITIs and the CLLD for example and we'll hear more about these tools in a minute from our panellists. And these tools were kept and reinforced and the earmarking for urban for ELDF was reinforced and the proposal is to increase it to 6%. But there are also new elements as well and we'll hear more about these in a moment. One of them is Policy Objective 5. At CPMR I have to say we were pleased to see that Policy Objective 5 was about sustainable and integrated development of urban areas, that's very important, but also rural and coastal areas and local initiatives. I know there's some debate going on about the title of that objective. I don't want to go into that now but it's certainly a step in the right direction in terms of what this policy objective is about. And there's also the European Urban Initiative as well which we'll go into in a minute as well. So in terms of the running of the workshop we'll first hear from Maud to get some, I'll introduce them in a minute, to provide us a presentation of the new Christian policy tools for urban and local development for the post-2020 period. Maybe a little bit of a wider perspective of where we are when it comes to the future of Christian policy, but as I said the focus is really on the tools, the strategies that are being led locally, taking stock of what's taking place and perhaps some lessons learned for the future. So once we've heard from our two guests we'll have five presentations from experts from the Alaska region, Northern Ireland, Umbria region, the city of Heidelberg and the Philippines region. And then we'll have a debate for yourselves. We've actually planned for more than an hour of debate for the audience, so please get your questions ready because we'll need you to actually have a fruitful discussion in a minute. So without further ado I'd like to give the floor to Ian Alvish who is a member of the European Parliament who's going to give us a little perspective on the urban dimension of Christian policy. So, Ian, you have the floor. Thank you very much. My name is Ian Alvish, I'm a member of the European Parliament. This is my 16th year in the Parliament, so I had a chance to observe the work of the Parliament. I'm from Poland and I am chairing for 15 years the urban integral, meaning the cross-party activity concentrated on the urban dimension in European policy. But now I'm also the rapporteur for the next perspective, for the next budget, 2021-2027. I am one of the rapporteurs of the Parliament, another one is from Portugal. So we are now working on the new perspective. So that's why when I speak about the European policy and urban dimension I also talk about the whole process. And when you said that we reached the position, it means the Council reached the position and we reached the position and we are not the same. So I think this is important to understand because the negotiations are just started and I don't think that we are really in a hurry. So please be not surprised that the process is not really very, very quick. But first of all I would like to say that this is a very symbolic place, a place which is linked to Northern Ireland. We hope to meet here again in a year, but we'll see what will happen. This is October and you can imagine the whole atmosphere in European institutions. But anyway, this or that, we will meet here I hope in one year. But going to the urban policy and the new proposal of the Commission. I think there are several elements in the new proposal of the Commission. This is in fact not revolutionary, but it's a real change. And this is a real change in several elements. In technicalities of course it's a change, but it's also the change in treating the cohesion policy. Please observe the whole situation, especially in the net payers' country. They would like to have cohesion mainly as reducing disparities. But we would like to see the cohesion policy not only reducing disparities, but also investment policy. But this tendency to reduce it for disparities is of course the tendency to reduce the cohesion policy only for the poorest. And to say that, okay, this is like traditional cohesion policy many, many years ago. Okay, let's concentrate on the poorest. Okay, we can discuss the indicators. And let's leave the richer countries with their own problems, etc. Some of the ministers of the net payers' countries come to see me as a rapporteur for the next budget. And some of them I will not quote from which country said that we don't need cohesion policy at all and we want zero. And she even told me that the net payers should get nothing, zero. Cohesion policy should be only for non-net payers. I quote one of the ministers of the net payers' country. Of course he exaggerated, this is a kind of provocation, because I asked him what about the cities, what about the provinces. Do they like it in your country? I said we will manage. But I think this is a real tension. What cohesion will be in the future? This is a real political tension. So when we discuss cohesion policy this is a question of course of the cities, of the urban areas. This is something which is at the same time reducing disparities, because in the cities we see the biggest disparities today. But this is the future. This is the investment policy. We invest in urban areas. This is a way to reinforce the growth inside the European Union. So that's why it's not by chance. But we were fighting last year, I remember, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, we were fighting to have the clear urban dimension inside the European regulation. It was not very easy. Why? Because it was not supported neither by the Commission nor by the Member States. But even more, it was not supported by the cities. Because the cities were afraid, the local authorities, they were afraid that if the European Union enters into the urban dimension it will control the cities. It will impose something on cities. So that's why the opposition says it's subsidiary, don't touch it. Leave the cities where they are. Don't touch it from the European level. I am the former mayor of this small city. So I know that we need the support. We need the support from the upper levels, including European, because we will not manage. There are completely new challenges and the cities will not manage to do it. Because it's impossible. It's impossible to make these experiments in each city. It's necessary to work together. And to, for example, to invest European money for the new ideas, innovation, and actually transform it to scale it up. It's impossible on the city level. So that's why we managed, last time, we managed to have the urban dimensions. We had a very famous earmark in 5%, 5% of ERDF, and 0.2 for urban innovative actions. It was a very good sign, because now in different member states there are different results. But in some member states there are very good results with 5%. But there were also the different ideas in different DGs in the commission like the special prize for innovative cities, etc. So it was growing. So the urban dimension was growing. So I think this is very good. We even started to speak about the rural and urban together. Because this is important to show the link, to speak about the territories, to speak about the urban areas. This time what we have on the table, this is the result of the experience of the past. So you can find some elements. One is, I think it will be developed by the next speaker, is the OP5. But I don't want to speak about this. But as you say, it's probably 6% for ERDF. We say sorry to the commission. Are you joking? I mean 5% was 5 years ago. What we have today is 8, already 8. So we have to have at least 10. This is the proposal from the parliament. This was supported by the committee of regions. Let's start with 10 and not from 6. What is 6? 6 is 1% more. Do we see that this is successful or not? If it's successful, let's double it. If it's a failure, ok, let's try again. So for us it's a success. So it should be doubled. It should be doubled. 10% is the minimum for us. So this is the position of the parliament. Next, the European Commission put several elements which were completely separated up to now. First, they included inside the regulation the ERBACT. I think this is very important. So the ERBACT now is in the urban initiative. And this is obligatory, this is the regulation, etc. We say ok, this is very good because ERBACT is a good experience with the networking with the cities. You know with ERBACT it's not necessary to do that. Second element is the urban innovative actions. Ok, so this is money for the kind of experiments. Experiments made by the cities. So I think this is also a very good idea. It should be stronger, but anyway, ok, this is good if we follow. The difference is that the innovative actions is distributed and organized from the European level. It's not from the national level, it's not from the regional level, it's European level. So you know very well this is the managerial authority which is the agency in Lille organizing the innovative actions. So this is the second element of the urban initiative. What it shows that the commission, when they put the proposal, they were thinking of how to reinforce the whole system of distributing the knowledge, exchange of experience between the cities. Because this is in fact, ERBACT and innovative actions is just ok, let's take the good example, let's reinforce it, let's show it to the cities, let's scale it up. This is this kind of thinking. So because you know that exchange of experience is something which we are doing all the time, that you are doing all the time. I mean exchange of experience through the different associations. But this is now based on the legal base. Exchange of experience means not only good experience but also the bad experience. The third element which is interesting but not very clear enough for us is the urban agenda. Because urban agenda, as you know the proposal coming from the Dutch presidency, which was the proposal based on the Amsterdam pact, which formally is the implementation of the new urban agenda by UN. By the way, our agenda was first and the UN was second. But anyway, we are implementing the UN SDGs. But anyway, this is a political issue. Urban agenda, this is practical. This is, I mean, let's keep it as important element of European Union. What is the weak side of urban agenda? This is based on intergovernmental elements and it's voluntary base. So the member states they can enter or not. This is the first point. Second point is who is the owner of urban agenda? Who is owner of the agenda and who is controlling urban agenda? Who is supporting it? Who is responsible for urban agenda? Is it commission or is it intergovernmental? I mean when we see the documents from the commission, which are published, it will be managed by the commission. But this is intergovernmental. When we speak to different people, it's not very clear who is responsible for urban agenda. So what is the real goal of urban agenda? Because you know very well that we have partnerships. We have 14 partnerships working on different issues. Okay, what is the real advantage of the partnership? It's the multi-level governance. Because they are cities, governments, regions, European Commission together. Which is not very easy. So in each partnership they are sitting around the table and they are discussing maybe first time. This method has been used. I mean to prepare, to discuss on completely different language, trying to find the same language. Trying to find same conclusion and next to prepare the action plan. And what is the real purpose of the action plan? Is the action plan, the purpose is exchange of experience? It has been made by the urban. It's made by the innovative actions. So if urban agenda is about exchange of experience, I think it's a waste of time. Urban agenda is to work together to change the system. I mean because the cities are coming with the commission, with the governments and say listen, you cannot organize the system like this because it will not work in practice. In practice it will not work. So the real issue from the urban agenda is to change the system. Is to change the financing of cities. It's changing the regulations. It's in fact to reduce the obstacles in European regulations, in European principles. So this is the real goal of urban agenda. But the question is okay, how it will be organized? And of course the main question for all of us, maybe some of you who participate in the partnership is, what is the follow up? What is the follow up of the action plan? Because the people are working very hard. They prepare the action plan. And what is the, who will take it on board? I have one of the solutions. Me as a member of the parliament, I'm waiting for the proposals. I'm waiting for conclusions. Not the text like Europe should be beautiful and we should develop sustainable etc. etc. You know it, how to write it. I know it. I mean everybody can write this kind of thing. Concrete solutions concerning the regulations. We don't do it or reduce it or define it differently. Because if you don't do it, we will not make it. This is the conclusion from the action plan. So I think, but the commission of course has a special network. It's the urban network which is organized by the commission. Also to have the kind of feedback from the cities. Commission proposed the 500 million for urban initiative. We said it's not enough. So we changed it as a parliament at least 560 million. 560 million. This is the proposal. But I would like to summarize, to read you the text we changed. We proposed the commission to change. And we will see what will be the result. For example, urban initiative. In the text of the commission is the initiative shall cover all urban areas and shall support the urban agenda of the union. We wrote our text. This initiative shall cover all functional urban areas and shall support the partnerships and organizational costs of the urban agenda. The question is who will cover the costs of the secretariat etc. You know if someone takes part in this, very difficult. Local authorities, this is our text, local authorities should be actively involved in establishing and implementing the European urban initiative. This is our text. It's like the European urban initiative shall consist of following three strands. This is the text of the commission. And this is support of capacity building. And we add, including actions of exchange for regional and local representatives of some national level. Commission, support of innovative actions. We add, which may receive additional co-funding for regulation of European agriculture funds for rural development. Because we think that we should have this kind of synergy between cohesion and rural areas. So this is just the example to show you that, just to finalize. Upon request from one or more member states the European urban initiative may be supported etc. We add, such as the reference framework on sustainable cities, the territorial agenda of the European Union and the adjustment of UN Sustainable Development Goals. This is just to show you that changing text regulation, which will be obligatory for member states. If it's written, the local authorities should be involved. This is in the regulation. So this is the way we would like to see the result. Just to summarize, we think that the urban dimension is stronger in the new regulation. And this is correct, this is very good. We don't think it's enough, but anyway, let's be satisfied with what we have. But we should be very clear what we want from urban initiative. And this is good for the cities and not to impose anything on the cities. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. As I said in my introduction, I think it's difficult to choose a better speaker. You have here proponents of the urban cause, the urban agenda for many, many years. And you're also a co-rapporteur on the future of the EU budget. And you were also, I forgot to mention, ELDF rapporteur at some point in time, not so long ago. So we're very happy that we have you on board and fighting for our joint cause. I can't help but react to one of the things you said at the very beginning about the negotiations. I know we're not here to talk about negotiations and the position of the parliament, the position of the council. But I just wanted to say that just a reminder that the European Parliament on the future of the European Union budget reached its position in November last year, if I'm not mistaken. So you were very, very quick in actually deciding inside the parliament what you wanted to propose moving forward. And likewise, for the various bits and pieces of the community policy package, very, very quick. The council is yet to actually discuss figures. And we hear that on the future MFF. And we hear that the current presidency, I hope there's no one from the Finnish presidency. Well, he's no one from the permanent. We hear that these figures might actually only be proposed at the end of October. And they'll start with a reduction. It's very optimistic, very optimistic. Yes, indeed. And that's actually the best case scenario. So just to say that we're very happy that you're here with us. And hopefully you can stay with us until the end. And I have to say, you know, you've been very good, actually, debating with regions, with associations like ours to actually take on board our proposals. So we thank you for being here. I'd like now to introduce our second guest, Katarzyna Szumieliewicz, from DG Regio. So we're very happy to get you. So you're here to give us a little bit of a perspective on the new tool that Jan started to talk about, the PO5, and perhaps a little bit about the RTI. So you have the floor. Good morning, everyone. So my name is Katarzyna Szumieliewicz. I work in DG Regio, in the Polish unit. So we deal with various regions. It's a geographical unit. But I'm here with you, and thank you so much for the invitation. I'm here with you to tell you about the next perspective. But in particular, to talk about Policy Objective 5, which is one of the five objectives that have been proposed in the draft regulations for the next programming period, in post-2020. So PO5, it's a completely new policy objective. What does it give to us, and why should we decide on its implementation? So I would say that PO5 gives us the best in cohesion policy. PO5 is the quintessence of cohesion policy, because it's about partnership, it's about cooperation, flexibility, adaptation. It's about effectiveness, but above all, it's about citizens' needs. That is why PO5 is called Europe Closer to Citizens. It offers a new mechanism using the tools that we already know, thanks to which Europe will be closer than ever to territorial needs and the needs of people. Now, cohesion policy plays a key role in bringing Europe Closer to Citizens. And PO5 allows to combine EU priorities with local needs. So with the needs of local communities, local municipalities, villages, towns, but also cities and metropolises. As I said, it's a new policy objective, but the tools that it promotes have been used for several years, and member states know the tools very well. The whole regional policy after 2020 is to be more flexible. And again, PO5 offers the best dimension of this flexibility by allowing to combine different priorities, different programs and different funds to obtain, in principle, the best investment mix for territories, for regions, for cities and for citizens. Well, we all know that regional capitals, metropolises are the drivers of growth and of the development of regions, of countries and of Europe. But there would be no cohesion policy if it was not for the local territories, for local communities. It should be the local communities that drive local development. This way contributes to the development of the whole region and the whole country. What is so specific about PO5? Well, we might have heard that it's place-based, that it's about inter-based approach, so I will tell you in more detail. Well, it really promotes taking investment decisions as close as possible to citizens. That's why we say it's place-based. It really takes into account the needs of a given territory, of a given place. By involving citizens in cohesion policy, it increases their awareness, their participation in cohesion policy in EU funds. It increases their participation in Europe. It helps building civil society. We also say that PO5 is based on an integrated approach. What does it mean? Well, it means that, again, PO5 looks at a given territory as a whole. It takes a holistic, comprehensive approach. It analyzes the needs and potential of a given area in a cross-sectoral manner. It provides responses to the challenges in a cross-sectoral integrated manner. So, sectoral solutions are no longer sufficient. Each territory has complex needs that are related to one another. And only this kind of cross-sectoral comprehensive approach that takes into account this complexity of a given territory can be efficient. This brings us to another expression. We might say that we associate with PO5. This is the functional area. So, this approach is based on functional areas. And again, it promotes thinking beyond borders. It promotes cooperation outside the administrative boundaries. This kind of approach, what is important from the cohesion policy point of view, increases effectiveness of support under cohesion policy. And again, it increases awareness and commitment of citizens. To local investments. Now, the functional area approach also helps to avoid situations where one area has negative impact on the other area. Because the needs of the area that is next to our territory are also taken into account. Cooperation within the functional area supports building the capacity of local levels. Exchange of experience, building partnerships, dialogue, cooperation and trust. It's also about PO5, it's also about urban areas. And here I will talk very briefly. It's about urban policy. And at this moment it's not so important how we define the specific objectives. Because PO5 is really about all territories. It's about urban functional areas. So, cities, towns, small communities. It's about rural areas as well. Coastal, you name it. It covers all. The urban dimension, as I said before, recognizing the role of cities and policies in the harmonious and polycentric development of regions in Europe. But also the need to ensure sustainable organization and to strengthen urban-rural linkages. So, the big metropolises function well with the links to urban areas that are surrounding them, with the links to small and medium cities that are surrounding them. They complement each other. Now, it's fair to say that more and more people live in the cities. It is in the cities that the challenges are concentrated. So, by challenges we mean pollution, traffic, congestion, transportation, access to services, access to employment, education, health services. Those challenges are concentrated in the cities. And again, addressing them, providing an effective response needs an integrated and cross-sectoral strategies that will be planned for functional urban areas. Speaking of strategies. Well, the strategies are crucial for PO5. All interventions carried out under PO5 will be based on strategies. We can speak about local strategies for really small local areas, small communities. We can also talk about broader strategies for big metropolitan areas. We can talk about subregional strategies. Those strategies will be serving different tools, and I will talk about those tools in a second. But what is important, and I will underline it once again, that these strategies are to analyze the needs and the potential of the area. They also have to provide description of integrated approach of how to tackle those needs and how to develop the potential. The strategies have to be developed in a partnership with all partners active in a given functional area. So the partnership is very important. The partners have to be involved in drafting the strategies. And then strategies are the basis for selecting a set of investments most suitable for a given area. And then once the strategies are, the strategies can be very broad, they can be very comprehensive. But then what actions, what investments will be supported from coefficient policy, it needs to be prioritized in the strategies. Because the strategies can include different sources of financing, obviously private, also private sources, national sources. It's not drafting strategies for the purpose of EU funds. It's the other way around. We come up with, we start from the strategies and then we see what areas, what needs can be best supported from EU funds. Well, now I would like to tell you a bit more about the specific tools that Policy Objective 5 offers. So I'm sure you know the IPIs, which are the Integrated Territorial Investments, and you know the CLDs, which are the community-led local, which is the community-led local development. You know those tools. Those tools have been for many years also using different funds. And well, CLDs really is the tool that really supports bottom-up initiatives. It directly involves citizens in cohesion policy and in the distribution of EU funds. It is an instrument which is led by the local action groups, which are composed of representatives, both from the public and private sector. No single interest can dominate or control the decision-making. So it's really very inclusive. CLDs focus on sub-regional areas. It's carried out through integrated strategies. So again, strategy is the starting point. And I think we will have today examples of some CLDs. Since I'm dealing with Poland, I know that in Poland CLDs have been implemented or are still implemented in the current perspective in two regions. So our idea would be to promote scaling up and to promote this tool to other regions as well in the new perspective. We are, however, aware of the challenges and the obstacles that sometimes the regions face. But we are there now to talk about what has been good, what needs to be improved, to promote this tool, since we really appreciate the direct involvement of citizens and authors. The second tool is the ITI, so integrated territorial investments. And here Poland, I will again refer to the country I know best. Poland has extensive experience in implementing ITIs in the current period, both in functional metropolitan areas and in sub-regional areas. There have been many cases of success stories. And well, in our opinion, in Commission's opinion, the experience gained so far in the current programming period should be used for future. And the capacity that has been built should be preserved, used for the next programming period. Again, lessons learned, and Poland will see how to best proceed to the next perspective with the capacity for ITIs that it has built. What are the main advantages of the ITIs? Well, here it's about cooperation of municipalities. In Poland it's typically the urban area with surrounding municipalities. All regional capitals, and it has been obligatory for Poland, all regional capitals have ITIs. So it's again cooperation, partnership, dialogue, discussing investment needs together, developing common strategy for the functional area, building trust, building cooperation, building capacity. So this is what we see as the main advantages of this tool. And I would like to also stress that although very often ITIs are implemented in urban areas, they can also be implemented in rural areas. And communes, rural communes can also form partnerships and act as ITIs. Now, about partnership. PO5 is really about partnership. It gives everyone a chance to participate in cohesion policy. So even mayors of small villages, of local communities can be involved. As I mentioned, for CLSD it's really direct involvement of citizens. For ITIs it's more direct involvement of communities, of municipalities. And I would like to tell you that it is now time to act. So if you want your area to be covered by a territorial strategy, it is now time to start drafting this strategy. It's also now time to talk to the managing authorities, relevant managing authorities, regional, national, depending which member state you are, to make sure that the territorial cooperation is reflected under PO5 in the new operational programs that are being prepared or will be soon prepared. So it is now that the programs for the next seven years, starting in 2021, are being designed. So really we should now think about the territories that we would like to be covered, not only thinking about individual communes, individual municipalities, but under PO5 we think about the whole territories. So we act in partnerships with other communities. Well, in programming it is also important to remember about the principle of partnership inclusion in programming of all partners. We should also remember when it comes to programming that the ITIs and CLDs allow for lots of flexibility and they allow for implementation of thematic concentration. So again, the strategies can be very broad. And they can draw from different funds, different priorities, different programs. So when they draw actions planned under POs and respecting the enabling conditions, they can also be part of the strategies. So I would like to really underline the flexibility of those two tools. So ladies and gentlemen, let's make the most of the new opportunities that the PO5 brings. Let's use the tools that we already know, that we've tested. Let's scale them up and let's build civil society that can consciously shape territorial cohesion in the regions. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you very much for this broad perspective of the new tools that are at the disposal of matching authorities and ESI funds in the next programming period. It's time to act. I think that was one of your messages. I think don't wait until the end of the negotiations to start designing those strategies. I believe a couple of our panelists at least are already thinking about possibilities when it comes to those strategies. So thank you very much for this broad overview. Before giving the floor to our panelists, perhaps we have time for one or two questions. If you have any burning questions for our two keynote speakers. Now is your moment. Any questions? Perhaps I'd like to ask a provocative question if I may say, because I know Ian and Rosh quite well. I can't help but ask you about the negotiations that you mentioned earlier. I think you said that this will be a long game. It will take a long time. Can you tell us more? What's your perspective on those negotiations? What will be the stumbling blocks and when can we expect an agreement? Because let's face it. If there is a late agreement on the MFF and accretion policy package, then there's a possibility that the programs will not start on the 1st of January 2021. Any thoughts on this? Because you know me so you know what I will tell you. But I have to keep the political correctness and not to discourage the local actors. Because the political game on the European level is quite complicated. Trying to answer your question very diplomatically, as much as I can, is just to inform you that tomorrow the European Parliament will vote the resolution on the MFF. Tomorrow. And in the resolution you can find a very interesting chapter which says, the European Parliament is asking the European Commission to start preparing the Plan B if we don't have the relations at the end of 2020. If we don't have the system at the end of 2020. So it means that we, as you see, we are not very optimistic. We think that the negotiations, of course we hope not, we hope not. But first, the problem of Brexit is not very clear. Secondly, the situation of the agreement between the member states, especially on the cohesion. Because it's a cutting of the budget. So third is the possible agreement of the Parliament. If we get the proposal from the Council, which is not satisfactory, we will reject it. And going to the days, cohesion policy regulation can be approved only if we have MFF. So if there is no agreement on the budget, there will be no regulation of cohesion policy at all. So that's why we would like to push the Council. Say that, listen, we are afraid that we will not manage at the end of 2020. And we have to tell them to find the beneficiaries. We have to tell the cities what they should prepare for. Because if we say, be in a hurry, do it, do it, do it, and at the end it's okay, we will wait another one year. So I think it's simple. But just a diplomatic way to tell you that we are not very optimistic. But we are trying to push the government to do it as soon as possible. We hope it will be optimistic, it will be ready half of 2020. This is optimistic. But relatively pessimistic at the end of 2020. And possible 2021. Thank you very much, Ian, for these words and for this diplomatic answer. I think you've touched on the points that we were all concerned about. So thanks very much for that. I'd like to move on to our panel discussion now. And I'd like to invite Violeta Dabrowska from Podlaski Region. You're Deputy Director of the Department of Regional Development from the Podlaski Voivodeship. You have the floor and you have a presentation for you. Yes. Actually, as you've seen half of my presentation, but hopefully I will tell more than it is on the slides. So it's a pleasure to have the possibility to share our experience with territorial instruments. We have in Podlaski, and Mrs. Trunela mentioned that two regions in Poland decided to implement CLLD in direct formula. Podlaski is one of these regions. And so I believe our experience is pretty interesting. In Podlaski we decided to implement this formula because we were facing challenges in shaping social capital and engaging local communities in development. The Podlaski region is a pretty low dense population. So we are facing problems with providing services, public services on a good level because the region is pretty big and there are not many people in there. So we decided to use local communities to involve them. What direct formula meant in practice? Local action groups prepared multi-fund strategies. As you can see, this is the Voivodeship, and we have 11 local action groups and 11 local strategies. They are three-fund strategies, ERDF, ESF, and this fund for agriculture, for rural development. And only one LG is a single fund. This is for fisheries funds. And these 13 strategies are implemented in direct formula. It means that local action groups are responsible not only for preparing the strategies in partnership, as it was mentioned, but they have more responsibilities. They are responsible for preparing the schedule for call for proposals for projects. They are also announcing these calls. They evaluate applications using local selection criteria. They choose the projects which are the most in line with local strategies. Last but not least, they help beneficiaries not only at preparation stage, but also at implementing stage of the projects. What I would like to underline, the CLRD in our region was designed in close cooperation with local action groups. Cooperation meant not only the allocation line between the main priority axis and this axis that are implemented directly, but also the types of projects they need, they wanted to support in their strategies. In the regional operational program, we dedicated 57 million euros for this instrument in two priority axis. One is co-financed by ESF, one is by ERDF. For example, for ERDF in regional operation program, we have 12 types of projects. They are like preschool education, renewable energy, social infrastructure, local roads or small scale revitalization. For ESF, it was 13 types of projects. They were like increasing quality of preschool education, school education, local activity programs, care services. As I said, we had this program with local public services. Also projects for integration of people with disabilities. As I mentioned, only two regions in Poland decided to implement CLRD directly. It meant for us a lot of barriers we were facing in this first stage of implementing. Because some of regulations on national level regarding ESF and ERDF implementation, they weren't in line. They didn't take into account the specific of CLRD approach. So it took a lot of time to make them useful for us. But we managed after a few years and also on regional level, we faced the barrier of administrative issue. Because we had to coordinate three funds rules in one institution. But as I said, after a few years, we managed to settle up the pretty good system. Not very simple one, but at least understandable for all the actors. These are some examples of projects that were implemented or realized in CLRD approach. As I mentioned, different types of projects or not, of course, all of them were implemented in every strategy. Because as Mrs. Simelević mentioned, the crucial thing is the strategy and the needs of each and every local community. This type of projects, they usually are not very significant from regional point of view. They are centered in north of our region. It's not regional impact. It doesn't have a regional impact, but it's very, very important for this particular community. And sometimes, and we believe not only sometimes, but very often, it helps to keep people in this community. This well-provided services can help keep people in this community. After these problems at the beginning of the implementation, we have to say right now it's a pretty successful instrument. You saw these numbers. Local action groups announced more than 450 calls. And out of them, we have more than 900 agreements or contracts, projects. Some other examples of the projects and a few words about ITI, another tool that we have. As it was said, every capital, regional capital has an ITI. In Oblast, it's the capital and nine communities around it. It's a functional area. It has a strategy. We dedicated 76 million euros for this ITI. ERDF, as you can see, is 67 million euros. And what did they do with this? The crucial thing is the strategy. For this area, the strategy focused on investment areas. Low-carbon public transport, including bicycle paths. Social infrastructure and services. Education, including vocational education. And energy from renewable sources. For this area, they prepared a low-carbon economic plan for the whole area. And they implemented some projects to make the plan be realized. Also, I believe, a very interesting thing for this ITI is that we decided to implement integrated projects. Both ERDF and ESF in one project. Technically, there are two projects because of technical problems, but we call it one project. It's very popular for vocational education and for principal education. Where from ERDF, the beneficiary builds or remodels some infrastructure. And from ESF, there are some trainings for this preschool or school for teachers and beneficiaries. I believe these projects give added value because they are integrated at the same time, at the same target. We believe in this kind of projects, although there are some technical problems with this because it's pretty new in our region. So, about the future, I believe we will talk a little bit later. These are some examples of the projects. In the future, we will talk. Thank you very much. Thank you. Interesting perspective on both what you're doing in terms of using the CLLD. And you presented then what you, the ITIs that you have as well. One of the things that you said, which I remember, and I think that's music to the years of Di Giugio, generally, but what is crucial is the strategy. You start with a strategy, and then based on that, you see how you can utilize the funds. And you explain how you're using the various rules of ESF. If you overcome the different rules to actually find a way to support your strategy. So, thanks very much for this very nice perspective. And you're right, let's talk about the future after this first round of discussion. Thanks a lot for your initial remarks. I'd like to give the floor now to Mrs. Granie Long from Northern Ireland. So, you're here to provide us with a little bit of a perspective on Belfast's work to drive the transition to a low common economy in the city. The so-called Belfast agenda. So, we look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much indeed. It's always a relief when you see your slides coming. Good morning everyone. And can I just say thank you very much to colleagues in Northern Ireland and the executive office for asking me to speak. So, I want to talk a little bit about what we've been doing in Belfast in relation to integrating our planning at city level. And just to echo what you were saying earlier in relation to urban policy. My role within Belfast is a city-wide role to take a risk-based approach to long-term planning. And I couldn't agree more. We need a strong, robust urban policy at a regional level, at a national level and at a global level. And in fact, if anything, city-to-city diplomacy and city-to-city relationships, I think, are going to be crucially important given the kind of global risks that we face. So, climate change and climate resilience does not recognise borders or doesn't recognise administrative areas. Essentially, the impacts are going to be felt and we have to be working much more effectively, I think, as cities. So, a huge amount of my role is helping Belfast and the organisation's communities across Belfast to build their resilience and we've taken a risk-based approach to do that. I'm not going to bore you with definitions, but essentially what we're trying to do in Belfast is to build our capacity. To better understand risks, so to understand what's coming as a risk and also to prepare for those risks so that we're better able to recover from them. And our particular focus is around economic resilience and climate resilience and there's plenty of academic research to show how resilient cities behave. And that includes being reflective, so understanding and using past experience to inform how you make decisions, being resourceful. And I have to say, one of the things I've learned about working and living in Belfast is as a city, given its size, its scale, its reach and its connectivity, we are a very, very good and very resourceful city in terms of how we use people, time and money effectively and innovatively to solve urban problems. As has been said a number of times previously, inclusive strategies that are inclusive and that bring partners together and the most successful cities, as we all know, are inclusive cities. Working together and bringing a range of systems and institutions together and managing those systems in a robust way. Trying to reduce pressures on systems and we don't ever want to get to a point where there's no capacity in some of our urban systems. And that's what really good risk management is about and ultimately resilient cities are flexible cities and they're able to adapt and adapt well. So as was mentioned previously, our vision for Belfast is set out in our community plan called the Belfast Agenda. And that's the first time in the city's history that the range of partners across the city have come together, undertook a conversation with the citizens and the residents of Belfast and produced a single vision and a single goal for the city. And I think if you go into, so I work in Belfast City Council, which is a wonderful city hall right in the centre of our city. And I think if you go into the centre, some of our elected members are here today and if you go into City Hall you will see copies of Belfast Agenda on the desks of so many of my colleagues. Because we really do genuinely use this document to inform and to guide us as a city. And when our chief executive and when our members go out globally to speak to potential partners globally, this is the document that we use. So this is our core vision and everything we do is around the kind of city we want to build between now and 2035. And that informs every strategy that flows beneath it. So what we've been doing over the last year or so is looking at where the shocks and the stresses might be for the city. I just want to talk, any of you who are health professionals will know the difference between acute conditions and chronic conditions. And shocks are acute, so they're either immediately going to impact you or they're going to be devastating, so one or the other. And chronic tend to be slow moving problems that grow over time and that we find difficult to unpick. So I just want to talk to you about some of the shocks that we've identified for the city, our wastewater treatment capacity. So some of these will be really, I suppose, you will know very well in your own city, so they'll be familiar to you. And in many ways Belfast is like many other cities, underinvestment in our infrastructure for a number of years, whether it's in our wastewater infrastructure or indeed in our social housing stock, we have significant problems in both areas in terms of underinvestment. Like many of your cities we face real and significant risks from flooding, so the entirety of the city is an area of significant flood risk. And our proximity to water and our water resilience will be a huge issue for us going forward. Given where we are today, you will not be surprised to see UK exit listed there as a shock. It's something that as a city we're planning for extremely with a huge amount of detail. And obviously as the capital city of Northern Ireland we will be the closest capital city to a border with the European Union. So having to prepare for that as a city and our elected members who are here are very involved in that. Our preparedness for climate change, so not just what we do but actually how prepared we are and the plans that we have in place. And also our cyber resilience, so our ability to withstand attack are some of the areas that we've looked at in terms of acute shocks. And on to the longer term stresses and I'll go through these relatively quickly because of time and I'm happy to answer questions. How our population changes between now and 2035, we're one of the youngest cities in Europe. We want to remain that way and we want young people to grow up in Belfast seeing it as their city, a single city, a united city. But also a city that they want to grow up in and that they want to stay in. And one of the challenges that we face is that a large number of our young people are either economically inactive or indeed if they do go on and finish their education and gain jobs they often want to leave the city. And that's something that we need to turn around. We need to build our economic resilience to economic shocks. As a city you will know that Belfast has been and continues to be in many ways a divided city and a city that's responding to what was a deeply entrenched conflict. And over time in our city we essentially did not develop the city centre and the core of the city for a number of reasons and many cities that have experienced conflict do that. They don't build residential developments in the city centre. And that's something now that we're very, very focused on and colleagues who are here today know that in detail we have a number of very ambitious targets for how we develop the city centre and the city core. Like many of your cities and I've travelled in a taxi today across Brussels, our dependency and the prevalence of cars and on fossil fuels is a huge challenge for Belfast. And I'll speak very briefly about that. I've talked about the fact that we continue to be a segregated and divided city in many, many ways. And actually what we found in some of our research is that continues to impact on our mental health and the mental health of our citizens. And finally, and I'm going through this very quickly, but the governance and the financing of risk and how we fund, and this is ultimately what I'll come on to, but how we fund some of those big strategic risks are really important. But what I wanted to show you today is there's a method to all of these strategies that have been talked about. What most cities have to do is we have to sit down and we have to talk about the long term strategic risks, fit them within an urban planning framework and then move as quickly as possible. And some of the levers we want to use, and this is still something that we're working off, is to focus on specific areas, whether it's climate readiness. So these three areas of focus for us, and these are still in draft and we're working through them, are building our climate readiness as a city, building our connectedness as a city. So not just our connectedness within our city, but actually our connectivity with other cities. So whether it's with Belfast, with Dublin or with London and with the rest of the European Union cities and right through our connections globally. And also, as I mentioned earlier, we have a really strong vision for children and childhood in Belfast and we want to build that to ensure that our young people see it as their city and theirs alone. I want to talk about two specific areas of focus that I've been asked to look at, and one is air quality and the other very briefly is energy transition. So you might recognise this slide, any of you who understand issues of air quality, and this is taken from the UK Clean Air Strategy, but essentially what it tells you is the sources of pollutants in our air. And there's many of them and if there's air quality scientists in the room you'll know this far better than I do. But what we wanted to do in Belfast is to understand not just the sources of pollution in Belfast, where they are and how we measure them, but actually understand that in real time. So that our residents and our citizens can actually take decisions about how they get around the city, when they get around the city. So one of the issues that came up in a number of consultations in the last year or two has been parents concerned about how they get their children to school. And if walking your child to school actually is going to make their children less healthy. And of course all the data tells you that's not true, but I understand entirely as a parent that intuitively you feel when you're walking through pollution would it not be safer and healthier for me to be on a bus or in a car and actually the data tells you it's not. I won't go through all of this text, you'll be delighted to hear. What it essentially tells you, and I'm happy to share my slides, is it goes through the governance essentially of air quality management in the UK. The national UK government sets the air quality standards and those are taken from obviously the EU directive at the top of the screen. And then those are applied locally through the Northern Ireland government and as the local authority for Belfast we measure and monitor air quality. That's really all you need to know. What we did was we worked with the UK Space Agency and some of this was helped and enabled through various sources of European funding. And what we began to do was to map air quality in real time throughout Belfast over the course of a number of months to understand the background air quality and then what the live data shows us. Any of you who have been to Belfast and my colleagues here will know this maps for example a journey on the 30th of October 2018 from the Matter Hospital to Belfast City Hospital. These are two hospitals in the city and they're very central and it maps and shows the level of NO2 exposure over the course of that morning. The morning commute being 7am to 9am. And what it shows is the car and cycle potential exposures are nearly identical and it shows some of the major challenges that we face. What our study found though is that there are four steps in the pathway linking air pollution with health impacts. And what is the concentration of pollution? That's a major issue for our city. So it's 20 to 11 now. If you were to be in Belfast right now you'd say she's lying, this is a beautiful city, there's no cars, where are all the cars. Actually as a city we have extreme issues of air pollution and congestion for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening. And the difference between the most congested and the least congested bit of the day actually puts us in the top 25 cities globally for congestion because of the way that's measured. So in other words it's the extreme differences. So if you're walking for one of those two hours or at any point during those two hours the concentration of pollution is really really important in terms of health. The exposures of the time in which, so if you've got a five minute walk compared to a 45 minute walk it makes a difference. The intake rate, so if you're running or if you're walking or if you're in a car. Remember children's lungs are much much smaller so children breathe, babies breathe four times, sometimes six times more rapidly than adults. So again that makes a big difference. So all of that data really gave us some rich information about the importance of mobile shift, getting people out of their cars, getting them onto streets, changes to our traffic policy, changes to the importance for us in Belfast of really challenging ourselves and being ambitious and going beyond national targets, UK targets on air pollution. And actually going beyond EU targets and we need to set ourselves the kinds of standards around WHO standards and those are the kind of ambitions that we want to seek. But it also allows us to work with citizens so that they can take informed choices about how they get around their city in the interim as we clean up our air. And as I say it also then allows us to use some of this data in a major EU project which we are part of working with a number of cities and in partnership with Queen's University of Belfast. So that we take that data and we then put it alongside other data as part of the human exosome project which some of you may know is a European Union wide project. Where we are trying to understand and move away from this idea of one exposure leading to one disease and understanding the health system in a much more holistic way. And I will move towards the end just to talk very briefly about energy transition. So this is a major priority for us in the city of Belfast and working and finding ways in which we generate and make best use of energy development. And this project is called GENCON so it's generating energy secure communities and what it enables us to do is to use renewable energy in a much smarter way. We need to find new ways of storing excess renewable energy and this allows us to do it. It's a prototype that's being developed to store hydrogen through energy capture and use it to fuel buses. And we have a number of projects and prototypes ongoing. What I should say by the way Northern Ireland has a very good story to tell. We have exceeded our national targets on renewables so more than 40% of our electricity sources now comes from renewables. And we have ambitious plans to go well beyond that. And in fact there was some very interesting discussions in council in the last few weeks about setting targets for carbon for the city. I've put this down mainly because our elected members are here and they're my boss and they haven't signed this off. So I have to call this a draft vision because it's their vision. So this is me making a shameless plug to them. But essentially this is the vision that I will be putting to them in the next number of months for how we create a resilient Belfast. Developing a low carbon climate ready economy and that transitioning to a low carbon economy is really important for us. But it's an extremely exciting time because we want to do this by not just doing it because it's the right thing to do. But we also have real ambitions for building a new generation of skills and jobs in Belfast and for our young people. So delivered and delivered by resilient infrastructure and a healthy city. A city that values young people as its greatest asset. And why wouldn't I say the best place in your life to go? Thank you. That's a very nice way to conclude I think your presentation on a very positive note. And thanks for this rather comprehensive description of what you're trying to achieve with the Belfast agenda. The challenges linked to pollution and how you've come to address that in an integrated way. I mean one of the things that perhaps we'll come back to is the challenge of funding. But of course there's a shared prosperity fund around the corner apparently. And you may know the CPMO has done some estimates as to what the UK would be entitled to if it remained a member of the UK Union Bioware Structural Funds. And this is very ironic of course but we foresee quite a big increase compared to what the UK currently receives. So it's interesting that actually there would be more European funding bioware structure funds. But this is not the place to discuss the Belfast. Perhaps you have a thought to keep that for later. Thanks very much. I'd like to give the floor to Lucio Capolizzi from Umbria region. You're going to speak to us Lucio about the experience of the urban agenda in Umbria region. So you have the floor. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well first of all I would like to describe you where is our region because we forgot the first slide. So Umbria is a small region which is situated just in the centre of Italy. It counts less than one million of inhabitants per population so it's a small one. In the urban agenda I moved five cities, the five biggest cities of the region. But obviously we don't have a very big city. So the size of these cities which are smaller span from the biggest one which counts about 160,000 people to the smallest which is around 40,000. So the experience is implementing urban agenda in cities which are medium-small size. And so something different than metropolitan of course sector. But probably interesting just for that. We're located about 37 million, most of them from area of course. That's something from USF dedicated the latest to social inclusion. And the themes, the topics which are treated are as you can see mainly digital services in smart mobility. You can see that. Energy efficiency, public light, illumination particularly. And the enhancement of cultural heritage and as I said before social inclusion. So we tried to construct an integrated development program involving the five cities that I mentioned before. Each city with its own program. But the most important for us was to launch a challenge. A gamble for a new way of thinking cities and planning their policies because usually in the cities the municipality administrations they are more friendly to design small interventions, public works, build something which are very useful of course. Or very high design how to regulate urban development. But we tried to stimulate a different approach. An approach which lives from a vision that attempt to translate this vision in concrete and real works and interventions. This is not very easy indeed. We needed a long time for the programming phase. That's why the program for the first two years was seen as a very slow program. But it was a good time not to waste. Because in the end we could see an acceleration of the implementation and in fact we could achieve the targets for expenditure and implementation targets which were fixed by the end of the last year. And in this target we could certificate some that you can see there and have those results. Especially the first intervention which was implemented was an intervention related to energy efficiency. And we could save this 1.64 gigawatt. Well, the reflection I think is important to reflect, to consider and to draw some lesson. I'd like indeed to draw your attention on these topics, on this issue. So with me, but not only because it was a common feeling I assume, that we need a strategic approach and not only daily emergencies. Especially in the municipality people working there which is in charge, they are absorbed by daily emergencies. This is terrible and they don't have time to construct and design a strategic approach which is very important. And this is the first one, the first item is conducive to the second, an integrated program and not the sum of integrations. This is a very, very important item. The limelight of municipalities is right. They are the first actor, the leading character and the regional imprint and coordination we can say. As a result we had a very successful institutional cooperation team. You can see over 50 regional technicians and five men all coming from the five municipalities. Which all together we have been building a common pathway, a common route. But we thought that it was useful not to stop there but to invest and to draw more lessons. And that's why we have worked out first a smart city index because you have to know to decide of course. Yesterday we attended in a square presentation of the regional competitiveness index. Which we thought that it could be useful to have a smart city index to compare the five cities between them, among them. But to compare with the other cities. Sharing the experience with other euphoria regions, the partnership. And we had several opportunities to discuss with people coming from other countries, from Sweden to Romania. And thematic workshop. We call Luce, which is the acronym of the Italian urban workshop. People which are working in carrying out the urban agenda interventions. They discuss together what could they learn from their work and what could they propose for the future. To deepen the topic. This is the smart city index. And these are, as you can see, the five cities under different topics. Infrastructure, sensory, service delivery platform, services, smart citizen, strategy and planning. And the position of each one of them. Often the biggest city, which is Perugia, is in the first place, as you can see. Often, but not always. It's normal. Anyway. These are the workshops. I want to focus, I want to underline this because it's very important and very participative work that we are doing. We had four workshops, 32 days, 60 participants. At the beginning we were not sure that could be so participative, that people could be involved so easily. Actually we were surprised for that. So we want to foster, we want to promote the dissemination, the territory of this new administrative culture and innovative approach. In a way that it will remain and it will not be only something for the moment. Because the region says them, so you have to think in a different way. And so they will say, okay, let's do that. Otherwise we will not receive resources. And we want this new culture will be embedded in the administrative behavior of these people. We think this could be one of the biggest results we could achieve. Lesson learned in the end, of course. Well, so concentrating from urban regeneration to urban vision. And from individual intervention to the planning of coherent actions. Living from coherent with a precise vision of the city. For that you need an administrative capacity and enabling conditions. You cannot afford this task, you cannot do that if you don't have high administrative capacity. And we don't have always in my region and in my country, of course. And encourage investment in multi-level governance. Also through reward mechanisms. We allocate some resources just to fund projects that put together different municipalities to work together for some public service. And to improve and strengthen technical and political coordination. This is not easy, especially for the political coordination. He doesn't want to rule his own city alone. But he insists in this work together in a structured way. Not like in the island, of course. And think in a unified way the strategy. Strategy, operational programming, management framework. And the integrated operational programming of intervention. And what is our daily pain, I think, not only our, the management and control systems. Which should be, but we know that, more streamlined and simplified to allow a better urban agenda implementation. Okay, I tried to recover some time. Thank you very much for the attention. Thank you very much. Thank you for this direct experience of the urban agenda in practice at regional level. I think when Jan mentioned earlier, who owns the urban agenda? I think you've got part of your answer there. I think this is the urban agenda in action in many ways. And I thought it was very, very interesting. Also, your slide about lessons learned to the future. Perhaps I'll ask you a question after this first round about what you plan to do for the next period. But let's go a little bit later. Our next speaker is Christian Schroll from the city of Heidelberg. And I'm very happy to give you the floor to speak a little bit about, again, the urban agenda, the value of partnership. As you see it as, I think, using a little bit of a new jargon, as a more developed region, or a city in a more developed region. So, you have the floor. You can use the microphone here or stand here. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. I would like to present today the situation and the challenges that we are facing in the city of Heidelberg. As Mr. Brooks already said, Heidelberg, okay, again, I would like to present you today the situation in Heidelberg and the challenges we are facing there. As Mr. Brooks already said, Heidelberg lies in a more developed region of the EU, southwest Germany. And you could say it's quite well off. It's a rather small city. We have 160,000 inhabitants. We have 120,000 jobs. The city is famous for its university with 30,000 students and a lot more in some private universities. And we have outstanding medical care. We have a lot of clinics there. And what is important is that we are a hotspot of tourism in Germany. You can see a little bit the famous old town and there's also a famous castle on the hill. So, we have 12 million visitors per year in our city. Like I said, the city is quite well off if you compare it to other cities or regions in the European Union. What probably had an impact on the fact that for a long time the city didn't apply to funding programs of the EU. Another reason would be that it was always said by my colleagues from the different departments of the city that it's too difficult, complicated, etc. etc. But as the other speakers already said, also Heidelberg as a richer city is facing more or less the same problems as other cities or other regions in the EU do. One of them, of course, is the digitization. Therefore, we have developed a smart city vision which will later be part of a greater urban agenda. But that's our first step because we wanted to tackle this problem as soon as possible. And as you can see, a lot of fields of daily life could be submitted under this vision. Like, for example, the traffic, tourism, of course, but also environmental problems, infrastructure. For example, we're building Germany's first communal broadband net in our city. And, of course, also health care. I mentioned already the clinics that are very important in our city. We also have a lot of open data projects, meanwhile, in Heidelberg. For example, we're developing different apps, one routing app for people with disabilities, for example, to get along through the city, which is especially important in the older parts of the city. Also, another app for the forests and the parks and all that stuff. So that's what we are doing here. Of course, we are facing other problems. My colleagues already have talked about the energy transition, the mobility changes. And another very special problem in Heidelberg was that until 2013, there was one of the headquarters in Europe of the American troops. But then they announced their withdrawal, so that like 20,000 people at once went out of our town. And quite a number of parts of our city were empty. I think 180 acres of the city were empty. So there was a problem. What should we as a city do with these areas? And of course, we also had the problem that a lot of people that had worked at the bases of the American troops were without work. So that was the moment when in the city of Heidelberg, there were some works going on and they were developing a plan, like this, for example, the Patrick Henry Village, where it's planned to build a smart city lab. Another one is the Heidelberg Innovation Park, which will be converted to a business area with IT, media, etc. But of course, a lot of those areas that were former barracks, etc. will be converted into living spaces, housing, etc. Because that, of course, is also a problem. Cheap room for living. In that moment, we applied for funding or for EU money, for example, at the ESF. Another plan was to apply for RDF, because in that Heidelberg Innovation Park, for example, they built a bio-organic center, like scientific center. So we got some money to build up these areas and to convert it, which was quite good, of course. But now we try to put all those measures, like the conversion of those areas, like the smart city plan that I talked about before, we try to put it into a greater city development action plan, or so-called urban agenda that is now under development. They've just started. And of course, we will also think about low-carbon economy, because, like I told you before, we have 12 million visitors each year, and most of them are not from Heidelberg or Germany or whatever, but they are from abroad, from China, from Japan, from the US, from the UK. And most of them are taking flights to Germany, and they only stay at Heidelberg for one or two days. And of course, there has to be done something. So that is our plan, to do something in the field of sustainable tourism. And that is why the city of Heidelberg has a lot of twin cities, meanwhile, as you can see in France, in the UK, in Japan, in Israel, in Russia, in the US, China, etc. But we also are very working a lot in city coalitions, for example, the energy cities where our Lord Mayor is head of this network at the moment, or for example, the OASC, the Open Agile Smart City Network, or we also were part of the Digital Cities Challenge as a fellow city. So we try to get in contact with other cities, try to develop together some actions, some measures to tackle common problems. That's so far from my work. Thanks, Christian. Thank you very much. First of all, thank you, because I understand that you are a little bit overwhelmed at the moment, so we very much appreciate that you could be here with us today. And thanks again for this perspective in terms of implementing an urban agenda, and the partnership you describe between the city of Heidelberg in Europe and beyond. And our last speaker now is Antonios Tsakis from Greece, from the beautiful region of Peloponnese. And you're going to talk to us about the RTIs in your region, a little bit about the perceived benefits and challenges. You have the floor. Thank you, Mr. Brooks. Good morning to all of you. Special thanks for the Northern Island and hoping that we will continue to design our common European future, even after the end of this month. And about the implementation of RTIs in the Peloponnese region. Let us first remember that RTI was proposed as a means to deliver cohesion policy in a territorial integrated way. And this all was to increase its effectiveness. In other words, cohesion policy effectiveness. This special moment, the RTI strategies implemented in our region, allow local authorities to combine funding from several priority access and thematic objectives of our operational program, taking funds and resources from both ERDF and ESF, and complemented as well by rural development funds. And this was all planned and designed in order to deliver multidimensional and cross-sectoral interventions. For the time being, and to be more specific, we have two sustainable urban development strategies in progress. Let me call them SUD. And, in supplementary, we have an IDI urban-rural strategy and a CLFD strategy. I think we are the only, and if not only, among the few regions in our country that we implement so many IDIs. And the key elements of all these four strategies is that, first, we have a clearly designated territory. Secondly, we have an integrated development strategy and a package of actions to be implemented. Thirdly, we have a regional managing authority, and this is the point of view we have for the IDIs, the point of a managing authority of a regional operational program. We have a final responsibility for these IDIs. However, the intermediate bodies, like local authorities, regional development bodies, and other bodies, are appointed to carry out delegated tasks. The above mentioned strategies cover a broad range of territories, namely functional, urban centers, and coastal fronts, like the municipality of Kalamata, the biggest city of our region, or an agglomeration of cities, a combination of cities, like the municipalities of Argos and Nagplio. Both cities are implementing an SUD as well. We have rural areas, like the municipalities of Mani, the south coastal front of our region, or even an agglomeration of municipalities, like we have three municipalities in the center of the Arcadia prefecture. Let us see some of the results and the emerging challenges we have for the future. First of all, it's important to note that the IDI is a territory-based approach that motivates cooperation, integration of the European structural investment funds, and supports the territorial dimension of cohesion policy. We have a delayed start, and I think that we are going to have a delayed start as well this time for the next program period. But despite the delayed start, we are now experiencing a real fast implementation since local authorities gained the momentum, we assist them, they took the appropriate support, and at the same time we satisfy the high demand for funding, because we have a programming goal, we have the performance framework. So we have to prepare ourselves, but at the same time we have to gain the goals. Another benefit has to do with the fact that IDI emphasizes on a list of projects that encounters specific development needs. This kind of approach strengthens the focus on the specific designated areas, and we have designated areas. And the IDI has in parallel to consider the interactions with the external environment. The fact that an IDI strategy has to address complex challenges from different single policy sectors motivates people from different professional areas to work together. This is a strong conclusion and a key element for the future. By viewing problems and needs beyond the narrow bounds of professional sectors, like universities, business chambers, central and local authorities, learn to combine inputs and use different funds in order to find more effective responses. For example, in Kalamata, the evaluation of IDI concluded that a mismatch between job market supply and demand could be resolved by training courses. So we had training courses from, let's say, the appointed authority of our nation, and then the SUD, the urban authority, took advantage of it to see how the authority could fulfill the demand for the market supply. Another issue, a very important issue, the capacity building. It still remains, I heard it from Italy as well, it still remains a strong challenge, and this has mainly to do with the next programming period. The IDI governance structures already established, and it was the first time that we have established such, let's say, structures in our region. This is the second programming period that we are going to experience such structures. The existing structures already established, like the associations of neighboring municipalities, gather experience in designing multi-annual and multi-level policy strategies, and by doing this, they enhance the role of local authorities, they learn how to coordinate various policy sectors. Consequently, they strengthen capacities for an advanced territorial development. In other words, we take the experience, we give the support, and the local authorities are now stronger to design for the future. But from region to region, we have differences. Our region is a medium-sized region in the middle of Greece, and it's like a big island. It has only two bridges, one at the west and one at the east, and we have to think of IDIs in a more, let's say, cooperative perspective, in a perspective like regional and municipalities go together, like I heard before in Italy. We have many common characteristics there. Functional and administrative boundaries, as well as single policy narrow-minded views, were strong problems and may cause negative impacts in implementation period. So, efficient practices must be in place from the very beginning. We have to mobilize potential beneficiaries on the basis of mutual win-win result, region and municipality. Raising awareness during public consultation. Public consultation is a very strong point to everyone. Especially focused on a range of stakeholders, promoting teamwork under a common new authority, rather than strategies based on individual municipalities, have been proven as effective approaches. I think that the cooperation of the municipalities so far in the SUDs and the, let's say, strategic role of the region is the main core of our thought for the next programming period, in order, as I said before, to work together. Evaluating the impact of the initial delays and the pressure placed because of the tight deadlines, as well as the time spent for the allocation of resources. In some cases, local authority emphasized, this is a problem, emphasized on funding absorption, rather than advanced strategic quality. This is another impact. When you are forced to get the performance framework goal rapidly and with very much pressure on you, then you choose to implement something that is already ready and not to design according to the needs. That's why we required from the very beginning as a managing authority a list of mature projects to be included in the proposed strategy, instead of competitive goals of interest. We proposed to have a list of projects, mature projects, in order to proceed, and this was the first time we had the implementation of ITIs at the level of the municipality. From now on, the municipality itself has, let's say, the experience to design, and the region is there to support and combine the policy in order to find common solutions and common designs. Therefore, with this list, significant central policy choices are fulfilled, regulatory issues and responsibility are clarified, and all active actors specify their own ground of partnership within the common strategies framework. Another critical issue has to do with the monitoring information system and the legislation provision for public procurement and state aid rules. We must not ignore that state aid rules and public procurement provisions, especially in our country where we have to harmonize with the directives and regulations, took at least two years in order to have the first goals of interest, and this caused a real delay. Although national legislation has been harmonized after these two years to the corresponding directives, there are still bureaucracy issues, so I think that another key point is to place professionals to work with the municipalities and the region in these posts in order to accelerate the process, reinforcing at the same time transparency and audit compliance. Because after the implementation we have the audit, so we have to follow the rules in order to have, let's say, compliant audits. Finally, there is an extra need for communication and visibility. Local authorities must communicate the results of the IDI instruments. If we don't communicate the results of this programming period, then we are not going to get the feedback from the people, from the citizens, from European citizens, about how is the impression, how is the effectiveness of this programming period, and how do they think we have to improve. Nevertheless, there is a challenge for cohesion policy in general, but visibility, awareness raising, and promotion are particularly important since we have to increase civic participation in cohesion policy actions, and there is only potential benefit from this. Now, for the next programming period, the advancement of territorial dimension is quite obvious, and the PO5, all previous speakers talked about it and discussed it in general and specifically, refers to Europe close to citizens, so we have to support all local initiatives. It is beyond any doubt that the territorial dimension becomes now a horizontal target, and we have to go for an innovation which will come through the opportunity of the Member States to propose their own IT models to the Commission. I don't know if it still is at the same, let's say, context in the regulation, but we were told that we would propose our own IT models to the Commission as a Member State, and we could proceed. I don't know if after the negotiation we will still have the same opportunity. Last but not least, it should be noted that there will not be any detailed guidance following the regulations, so we have a clear step towards simplification, and we have to go towards simplification in order to have results, but we have to follow flexible implementation, working together but with flexible implementation and results. And the regulation and guidance will address, I think, must address only to those points which have only legal content to explain. I think, Mr. Brooks, that we are going to have a long conversation about our prospects and in our region, like we said before, so I'll just keep my introduction to this point so far. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Anthony. Thank you for the rich analysis and the lessons learned in the future. I think it's very interesting that you've already taken a step to analyze what you've done already in the current program period and you're already thinking about how to apply that for the future. It's very, very interesting indeed. I understand now two keynote speakers have to leave quite soon. I can stay a bit longer. I will miss the second session. So I'd like to immediately give the floor up to Mr. Yanarwesh if he has any words of wisdom or any reflections from what you've heard from our five regional speakers. I think that while listening to the speakers, I became more optimistic about the cohesion policy in the future, because no matter how difficult it is politically in practice, it's interesting. But I just want to say that I had a chance to take part in the small group of people who were discussing and creating these IDIs. I was a rapporteur for URDM at that time. I must say that what was the real goal of IDIs, and I think this is a real proof of what you were saying. Our goal at that time was not how to spend better European money. It was how to reinforce the local initiatives, how to motivate the people to work together, how to give them the instruments to develop the partnerships, cooperation, being together, etc. This is the real issue. This is not how to spend money. Money is just an instrument. The question is, when we use European money, even Heidelberg from time to time, but if we use European money, is the question what will be later? What will be after using European money? What we can have after preparing and working on the IDIs? This is the real issue. Even though we still work together with European money or without European money. This is very interesting. What you said is that the process is ongoing. The structures are existing and probably they will stay. They will do many things together with or without European money. This is the real issue and not European money. Me, as a budget person, we have to remember that European funds are not the goal. European funds are just an instrument. Thank you very much. I will take with me my more optimism to the European Parliament. I am going to fight for budget. Thank you very much. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Είμαι πολύ χαρούμενος. Ένας από αυτούς των συμβουλήσεων είναι ότι ο κύριος Οδηγορίσσας αισθάνεται περισσότερος για τις πολιτικές συμβουλήσεων. Έχουμε κάνει κάτι θετικό. Μερικοί από τους πανεπιστωτές είχαν κάποια σκέψη για το επόμενο πρόγραμμα. Ο Αντώνιος ήδη εξηγήθηκε το πρόγραμμα. Είμαι ευχαριστός. Θα θέλαμε να γίνουμε στον πρώτο πανεπιστωτό μας, τον Βιολέτα. Έχετε αυτή τη σκέψη που μπορείτε να παρουσιάσετε. Έχετε μιλήσει λίγο για το τι έχετε κάνει στη βιβλιακή βιβλιακή σας, σχετικά με τη δημιουργία της ΑΠΑ, της ΚΟΛΑΤΑ, το πώς συμβουλήσετε το πρόγραμμα. Τι πιστεύετε για το μέλλον σας, τι προσπαθείτε να κάνετε. Έχετε μιλήσει λίγο για το τι έχετε κάνει στη βιβλιακή βιβλιακή σας, σχετικά με τη δημιουργία της ΑΠΑ, το πώς συμβουλήσετε το πρόγραμμα. Θα πω ότι θα συνεχίσουμε. Θα πρέπει να παρακολουθήσουμε την εμπειρία μας. Θα πω ότι θα συνεχίσουμε. Θα πω ότι θα συνεχίσουμε. Θα πω ότι θα συνεχίσουμε. Θα πω ότι θα συνεχίσουμε. Με το CLRD και το ITI, ήμουν χαρούμενη να ακούω ότι αυτό το πρόγραμμα με το P05 θα είναι πιο δυνατός σήμερα, όχι τώρα. Αλλά για να αποφασίσουμε τα προβλήματα που αντιμετωπίσαμε στις αρχές αυτής της περιοχής, θα θέλαμε να δουλεύουμε σχετικά από το ξεκίνημα και να προετοιμαστούμε και να προετοιμαστούμε να βεβαιωθούμε όλα τα εμφάνιση, να βλέπουμε το σχετικό της προσοχής, το CLRD. Θα θέλα να πω ότι τα δύο λόγια που είχαν μιλήσει πριν από κάθε αντιμετωπιστήριο είναι στρατηγία και συνεργασία. Θα θέλα να δημιουργήσω αυτό. Είναι το κλειδί και είναι το κλειδί για την συνεργασία. Συνεργασία μεταξύ εμφάνισης, εθνικής εμφάνισης και εθνικών εμφάνισης και όλων των παιδιτών σε αυτό το πρόγραμμα. Είναι πραγματικό. Ευχαριστούμε. Δεν ξέρω αν θυμιστείτε το όνομα Ευρωπαϊκή Εμφάνιση. Ήταν λιγότερος πρωτοβουλίας πριν το χρόνο της Ευρωπαϊκής Εμφάνισης. Αυτό, θα πω, δεν είναι μόνο για την εμφάνιση. Είναι επίσης για την αλληλεγγύη που χρησιμοποιούν αυτές τις εργασίες. Είναι για την εμφάνιση, για την συνεργασία, για την στρατηγία. Είναι πολύ σημαντικό. Κανείς άλλος θέλει να μιλήσει? Δεν θέλω να δημιουργήσει κανένας από τους παιδιτές να μιλήσει και να πει περισσότερα για ό,τι έχω πει. Αν θέλεις να πεις κάτι για το μέλλον, αυτός είναι ένας άλλος, ο Γρένιας ή ο Λουτσιόλ, ή κάποιος άλλος. Αν θέλεις να πεις κάτι, θα σου ρωτήσω μια πολύ δύσκολη ερώτηση, Γρένια, για το μέλλον. Το πρόγραμμα για το μέλλον είναι πολύ δύσκολο από την Ευρωπαϊκή Εμφάνιση. Έχετε κάποια σκέψη? Είναι δύσκολο να σχεδιάσουμε. Νομίζω ότι η μία πράγματα που μπορούμε να είμαστε σίγουροι είναι ότι πρέπει να σχεδιάσουμε, γιατί θα υπάρξει ένα μέλλον. Πρέπει να σχεδιάσουμε για αυτό. Είναι πολύ δύσκολο. Ωστόσο, ήμουν εδώ δύο χρόνια πριν και τρία χρόνια πριν. Είμαστε εδώ το επόμενο μέρος. Επίσης, πρέπει να σχεδιάσουμε. Οι συνεργασμοί και οι συνεργασμοί μου πρέπει να σχεδιάσουν για κάποια σκέψη. Σε εμένα σήμερα είναι πολύ σημαντική η συνεργασμή από κέντρα σε κέντρα. Πιθανόμαστε δεν μιλήσαμε για αυτό. Αλλά ένας από τους πρόκειμους για όλα τα κέντρα στην Ευρώπη είναι πώς συνεργαστούμε και πώς γνωρίζουμε από κάθε άλλα. Υπάρχουν μερικές πολύ καλές παράδειξες σε όλη την Ευρώπη. Έχουμε δημιουργηθεί ένα κέντρο με ευρωπαϊκή και μη Ευρωπαϊκή συνεργασία. Έχουμε δημιουργηθεί με την Καλλία και με την Μενεζίνα στην Κολυμβία, δύο πρωτοβουλιακά κέντρα. Είμασταν πολύ ενδιαφέρονες και εμείς, επειδή είμασταν 20 χρόνια πριν το συνεργασμό μας. Είμασταν πολύ ενδιαφέρονες και εμείς, επειδή είμασταν 2 χρόνια πριν το συνεργασμό μας. Και τα δύο κέντρα έχουν κάνει πολύ διαφορετικά προστάσεις σε δύο πρωτοβουλιακά συνεργασμό. Ένα πρωτοβουλιακό πρόσφατο, το Καλλία, και το δύο πρωτοβουλιακό πρόσφατο με εμπορική και εμπορική πρωτοβουλία. Είναι δύο πρωτοβουλιακό πρόσφατος. Αυτό λάβω ότι το πρωτοβουλιακό πρόσφατο μας θα γνωρίζει να μιλήσουμε από παντοδύσεις δεν ευρωπαϊκής κόμμας και να μιλήσουμε σε αυτό. Από μια μεγάλες προσφασίες, δηλαδή από την εκκέπτωση της Ευρώπης, Λόγω της Ευρώπης εξήγησης είναι η Ευρωπαϊκή Εξήγηση. Το Brexit σαν τρόπο σημαίνει η Ευρωπαϊκή Εξήγηση. Και, φυσικά, η Νότια Ιρλανδία είναι μέρος της Ευρωπαϊκής Εξήγησης. Είναι πολύ σημαντικό για εμάς και για εμένα να μην ξεχάσουμε τη Νότια Ιρλανδία. Ξέρω ότι αυτό είναι κοντά στο μυαλό μας σε πολλές τρόπες. Αλλά, όπως είπα, εμείς δουλεύουμε με τις Ευρωπαϊκές Εξήγησης σχετικά με τις υπηρεσίες μας εξήγησης και πιστεύω ότι είναι σημαντικό να πείτε ότι υπάρχουν κάποιες εξήγησης σχετικά με τις εμφανιστικές μας εξήγησης. Αλλά πιστεύω ότι έχουμε χρησιμοποιημένες συζητήσεις σχετικά με τις εξήγησης σχετικά με τη Νότια Ιρλανδία και πιστεύω ότι είναι σημαντικό να το κάνουμε. Ευχαριστώ πολύ, Γραίνια. Αν κάποιος θέλει να γνωρίσει, Ρούτσο, ξεκίνησες να μιλήσεις για την προετοιμασία για την επόμενη περίοδο προγραμματικότητας. Θες να πεις λίγο περισσότερο για αυτό και τι προετοιμασίσαι, πιστεύεις? Βέβαια. Βέβαια, προσπαθούμε να κάνουμε καλύτερα για την επόμενη περίοδο. Και τώρα έχουμε κάνει για την Ευρωπαϊκή Εξήγηση. Ήταν η πρώτη φορά και ήταν μια εμπειρία. Είχαμε πολλά πράγματα να μάθουμε, πολλά δάσκαλες να μάθουμε. Δεν χρησιμοποιήσαμε το εργαλείο του ITI για την επόμενη περίοδο. Είχαμε μεγάλη σημασία στην περιοχή μου και στο χώρο μου, μέσω της τελετωρίας. Και έχουμε, στην τελετή περίοδο, το τελετωρία που είναι τυπικό του Ιθλίου, αλλά που έχουμε δεχθεί από το Objective 5 και το προσέγγισαμε. Είμαστε χαρούμενοι για αυτό. Και δουλεύουμε, και δουλεύουμε, έναν ITI στην περιοχή μου για την περιοχή του Τραστημαϊκού Λέγου. Πιθανόμαστε θα χρησιμοποιήσουμε το εργαλείο του ITI για την επόμενη περίοδο. Βέβαια πρέπει να καταλάβουμε καλύτερα πώς θα δουλεύει το παιχνίδι. Αυτό σημαίνει ότι το εργαλείο του Objective 5, η κ. Καταργία, μας έχει εξηγήσει κάτι. Υπάρχουν περισσότερα πράγματα που πρέπει να καταλάβουμε καλύτερα. Ελπίζω ότι ο κ. Ολμβρύκτ θα είναι αποτυπωμένος. Αυτό σημαίνει ότι τα πράγματα θα βελτιωθούν καλύτερα από την εποχή του. Και δύο άλλα πράγματα είναι να προωθήσουμε καλύτερα πολιτική συμμετοχή. Υπάρχουν περισσότερα πράγματα που πρέπει να καταλάβουμε καλύτερα πώς θα δουλεύει το παιχνίδι. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Καλύτερα πράγματα για το μέλλον. Καλύτερα να πιστεύω για την στρατηγική. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. Ευχαριστούμε πολύ. |
