EPRC Conference on Benchmarking Regional Policy in Europe

http://www.eprc.strath.ac.uk/news/riga.jpg <img src="http://www.eprc.strath.ac.uk/news/riga.jpg" width="170" height="100" border="0" align="left More than 50 senior regional policymakers from the European Commission and 18 Member States and Candidate Countries met in Riga on 24-26 April for the Second International Conference on 'Benchmarking Regional Policy in Europe', organised by the European Policies Research Centre and hosted by the Ministry of Finance, Latvia. One year after enlargement, the Conference provided an opportunity to take stock of the experience of implementing Structural and Cohesion Funds in the new Member States, as well as on issues such as the strategic thinking under way for the post-2006 programmes, the role of territorial cooperation and the spatial targeting of resources under both EU and national regional policies. At this critical time for EU policy reform, the Conference also provided an opportunity to discuss the future funding and focus of EU Cohesion policy and the Commission proposals for the reform of the Regional Aid Guidelines. The Conference was opened by the Latvian Minister of Finance, Mr Oskars SpurdziņÅ¡, and the EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, Danuta Hübner, and chaired by Professor John Bachtler of EPRC. During the six Conference sessions, papers were presented by EPRC on the challenges of designing EU Cohesion policy strategies (Dr Sara Davies), the management and implementation of Structural and Cohesion Funds (Dr Irene McMaster), the future of territorial cooperation (Dr Martin Ferry), the spatial targeting of policy (Professor Douglas Yuill) and the reform of the Regional Aid Guidelines (Fiona Wishlade). The Conference was supported by the Ministry of Finance, Latvia; the British Council Latvia; the European Commission; the Ministry of Finance, Finland; the Scottish Executive; Highlands & Islands Enterprise; and the University of Strathclyde.