President Michael Schneider addressed the EPP political assembly discussion on the European Fund for Strategic Investment with European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen and EIB Vice President Wilhelm Molterer on September 6th from the perspective of the local and regional authorities.
President Schneider stressed that the regional banks have an important role to play as intermediaries to SMEs and taking EFSI to the local and regional level. However, they are not fulfilling their potential yet and incentives should be created to increase their commitment to EFSI projects.
He continued with an even more important message - to avoid playing the EFSI and the structural funds against each other:
"We need to combine the strengths of these two instruments and see how they complement each other, as both serve the same purpose of creating sustainable growth and jobs. It is too easy to say that the structural funds do not deliver results – this narrative is false. The funds work but we need to solve the problems arising from overregulation and red tape".
President Schneider closed his intervention by highlighting the role of the Committee of the Regions in drawing a wider vision for the future of Cohesion policy with him as rapporteur, expected to be finalised in May 2017.
He also announced the upcoming events organised by the EPP Group in the CoR:
- Conference on "The role of the EU's regional and local authorities in addressing the refugee crisis: our common challenge, our collective response" in Thessaloniki, Greece on 16/09/2016
- Seminar on "Europe's demographic – from challenges to local and regional opportunities" – at the European Week of Regions and Cities in Brussels, Belgium on 12/10/2016
- Conference on "The role of the EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR) in increasing prosperity and security in Europe" in Dubrovnik, Croatia on 28/10/2016
