European Union News - Regional Policy

European Commission approved PEACE III, the European Territorial Cooperation Programme for Northern Ireland and the Border Regions of Ireland (Louth, Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, Sligo and Donegal) for the period 2007-2013 period with €225 million budget. A new open call for proposal is open now.

Prospects for agricultural markets and income 2007-2014 was published last 4th April by the DG  Agriculture and Rural Development. It provides a picture of the likely medium-term developments of agricultural markets, based on a certain number of assumptions and on the statistical information available at the end of December 2007.

The event was organised by the Slovenian Presidency of the European Union. It offers an opportunity to discuss the policy's scope and impact, and paves the way for the forthcoming discussion on the EU budget. The Commissioner will present initial results of its analysis of contributions to the public consultations on the future of Cohesion Policy. A Green Paper on territorial cohesion will be published in September 2008 by the EC services.

The Interreg IVA Cross-border Cooperation Programme “Öresund-Kattegatt-Skagerrak” – Programme under the Territorial Cooperation Objective, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) has been approved On 27 March 2008 bye the European Commission with a total budget of around €223 million

The EU supports research and innovation activities through a range of programmes, including the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7), the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) and Structural Funds. Now the European Commission is developing a guide to help researchers select the right programme for their activities and even combine funds from different sources. A draft version of the guide is now ready and the Commission is keen to receive feedback on the document from the research community.

For the EU it is essential that the forthcoming global agreement sets the objective of limiting global warming to no more than 2°C above the pre-industrial level in order to prevent climate change from reaching dangerous levels at which irreversible and possibly catastrophic changes could occur. Keeping within this temperature ceiling will require worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases to be cut by more than 50% of 1990 levels by mid-century.

The European Union will be pressing for solid progress when formal negotiations to draw up a new United Nations climate change agreement start on 31 March in Bangkok, Thailand. The week-long meeting marks the first negotiating session since the UN climate conference in Bali last December decided to conclude the agreement by the end of 2009. The new agreement is intended to take effect once the Kyoto Protocol's targets for limiting greenhouse gas emissions from developed countries have expired in 2012.

The European Commission has published an amendment of the Decision 2005/338/EC in order to prolong the validity of the ecological criteria for the award of the Community eco-label to campsite service for 18 months which means that the criteria awards will remain until October 31, 2009.

Transnational Co-operation Programme for a European area in transition on the way to integration "South East Europe (SEE)" 2007-2013 under the European Territorial Cooperation Objective co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The European Parliament (EP) agenda for debate and voting has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union C 76 E/1.

Following the new rules adopted on the 19th March, by the European Commission all recipients of European Union agricultural and rural development payments will be published in detail.

In May 2007 the European Commission published the Fourth Cohesion Report which provided an extensive overview of how cohesive the EU actually is, what the convergence trends are, what challenges lie ahead and also what role cohesion policy has played in contributing towards strengthened cohesion among the EU regions and Member States. his was followed by the official launching of the debate on the future of cohesion policy at the Fourth Cohesion Forum organised in Brussels at the end of September 2007.