On 18 June, John Bachtler was an invited keynote speaker at an Austrian government conference on the future of EU Cohesion policy held in the Federal Chancellery in Vienna. Under the title 'EU Kohäsionspolitik: 2014: hat die Zukunft schon begonnen?!' (EU Cohesion policy 2014+: Has the future already started?), the meeting was organised by the Austrian Spatial Planning Conference (ÖROK) to present different European perspectives on the reform debate and to discuss the views of Austrian stakeholders from national, regional and local levels. As part of a session which included Dirk Ahner, Director-General for Regional Policy, and Wolfgang Bulfon MEP, John Bachtler was invited to assess the state of the reform debate and the views of Member States. Further information on the conference can be found here