Professor John Bachtler was the main speaker at two government seminars in Finland on the future of EU Cohesion policy. The seminars were held in Tampere (4 November), involving programme managers from the Western Finland Structural Funds programme, and in Helsinki (5 November), involving mayors and regional council leaders from across Finland as well as officials from various Finnish government ministries.
John Bachtler's presentations discussed the evidence for the performance of Structural Funds in Europe over the past decade, drawing on recent evaluation studies, and the prospects for the future in the context of the EU budget review and emerging thinking on the need for Cohesion policy reform. The presentations provided the basis for a discussion of the Finnish interests in the reform debate.