At the Open Days 2008 in Brussels, John Bachtler participated in a panel debate organised by the European Commission on the future of EU Cohesion policy post-2013.
With around 200 participants, the debate was chaired by the Commission's deputy director-generals for cohesion and employment, and the panel also involved senior regional policy officials from Austria, Denmark, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and the UK.
John Bachtler's panel presentation contained an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the governance of EU Cohesion policy and proposals for the future. In a separate presentation to the Open Days, he also presented interim findings from the ex post evaluation of the management and implementation of Cohesion policy (2000-06) being carried out for DG REGIO by EPRC.