The European People's Party Group in the Committee of the Regions (EPP/CoR) held a seminar entitled "Life without gas and oil?" on 7 October 2008, under the auspices of the Open Days: European Week of Regions and Cities. The seminar was an opportunity to exchange ideas and knowledge on the rising costs of gas and oil and Europe's potential to find alternative energy supplies.

The European People's Party Group in the Committee of the Regions (EPP/CoR) held a seminar entitled "City Diplomacy: A Tool for Building Measures of Confidence" on 6 October 2009, under the auspices of the Open Days: European Week of Regions and Cities.

City diplomacy has an important role to play, especially in times of major challenges. It offers a dynamic instrument, with which local authorities and their bodies can promote social cohesion, environmental sustainability and conflict prevention amongst others, creating a stable environment for citizens.

Macro-regional strategies, which currently exist for the Baltic Sea and Danube regions, allow the EU to identify needs and allocate available resources for sustainable development.

A potential future strategy based on the experience from existing strategies and the Union of Mediterranean, could be applied for the Mediterranean macro-region, focusing its scope and content on the specificities of the area in question. Primary issues, which should be at the core of the Mediterranean strategy, need to include economic development, climate change and safety and security.

"Local and regional authorities have developed much experience in the field of economic and industrial development, which makes us vital for the implementation of this flagship of the Europe 2020 Strategy." Michael Schneider, President of the EPP Group in the Committee of the Regions.

At the launch of the Europe 2020 strategy, the EPP Group in the Committee of the Regions made a call for all levels of government to be engaged on an equal footing in its design and implementation.

Closed innovation systems, which relied solely on industry for their research, are a thing of the past.