Today the European Commission presents the first results of an initiative launched a year ago to support 10 EU regions and two Member States in industrial transition: Cantabria (Spain), Centre-Val de Loire (France), Grand Est (France), Greater Manchester (United Kingdom), Hauts-de-France, North-East Finland, North-Middle Sweden, Piedmont (Italy), Saxony (Germany), Wallonia (Belgium), as well as Lithuania and Slovenia. They applied to receive Commission support and expertise in achieving industrial transition. The first results of this initiative are the launch of 12 pilot schemes, one per region or Member State, to overcome specific obstacles to industrial transition. Each of these schemes presented today will receive a €300,000 EU grant. Commissioner for Regional Policy Corina Creţu said:
“Based on the first results of this initiative, I invite all regions to replicate the experience in the future. They should identify weaknesses to address and assets to build on to haul themselves up the value chain in our globalised economy. To achieve this, they will have access to more than €90 billion of cohesion funding for research, innovation and small and medium businesses in the next long-term EU budget.”
A press release is available here and you can find more information on the 12 pilot schemes here. A roundtable with Nicolas Lebas, Vice-President of the Hauts-de-France region will take place this afternoon in the Commission, together with Commission and OECD experts. The discussion will focus on the lessons drawn from this initiative and how to best replicate the experience with cohesion funding in the next long-term EU budget.
