On the occasion of the meeting between the Committee of the Regions and national ministries of Urban Development held in Toledo (Spain), President of the Committee, Mercedes Bresso, stressed the need for future EU regional funding to increase attention in bridging infraregional disparities. At this meeting President Bresso presented the results of the recent CoR opinion, prepared at the request of the Spanish presidency.

In preparation for the Urban Development Ministerial meeting held in Toledo on June 22nd, the Spanish Presidency requested the opinion of the Committee of the Regions about the role of urban regeneration in the future of urban development.

For a sustainable urban development

Among the conclusions of the opinion of the Committee of the Regions about the role of urban regeneration in the future of urban development, the Committee stresses that within the environmental dimension of urban regeneration, high priority must be given to climate change, combating pollution caused by human activities, and the protection of habitats. The opinion also warns that even though Europe is already highly urbanised, the trend towards increased population density is expected to continue in some zones. As cities expand they could potentially destroy some resources and cause soil and water quality to deteriorate. Integrated urban regeneration programmes have the potential to stop or even reverse this trend by containing urban growth and regenerating the urban environment.

CoR considers that when making strategic choices for the forthcoming 2014-2020 programming period, the EU should recognise the strategic importance of urban regeneration and ensure that the urban dimension is given more priority in all EU policies.

The Committee of the Regions also highlights in its opinion the positive effect that cohesion policy can have on urban development, pointing out that urban dimension must be a more substantial part of strategic regional programming, but must not lead to a fragmentation of cohesion policy. “Urban policies must promote better energy efficiency, social cohesion and improved quality of urban development and innovation projects”, said President Bresso.

Infraregional cohesion, key element in cohesion policy

President Mercedes Bresso told ministers that future EU cohesion policy should pay more attention to economic disparities within regions, not just between them: "Urban areas are engines of economic growth but they can also hide severe problems of social and income inequality. Therefore, policy interventions should focus on pockets of deprivation which can also be found in rather wealthy urban areas."

The CoR President emphasised that this was a direct consequence of the EU's new rulebook, the Lisbon treaty, which had introduced "territorial cohesion" as one of the Union's official objectives: "The new territorial cohesion objective must involve all levels of government. More particularly, urban policies are testing grounds for good multilevel governance."