Partenalia attended on 15th of April the conferences organized by the Committee of the Regions called “An Investment Plan for Europe: joining forces”. It was a truly enriching event were issues like the investment needs and capacity of local and regional authorities were discussed, as well as the role of regions and cities in the local roll-out of the Investment Plan in mobilization of investments, managing the project pipeline and improving the investment environment.
The opening session was welcomed by Karl-Heinz Lambertz, Vice-President of the European Committee of the Regions and Wilhem Molterer, Vice-President for Cohesion of the European Investment Bank and it was followed by a panel debate. After the opening session there were two workshops held at the same, the first one on “Local involvement in EU investment management” and the second one about “Investment capacity of regions and cities”.
Workshops
In the afternoon there was time for two more workshops on “Local and regional authorities improving the EU investment environment” and “Guaranteeing innovation and quality in local public finances and investment”. It was this event, where Paul-Emile Mottard, Provincial Deputy of Liège, Belgium, and Chairman of the European Confederation of Local Intermediate Authorities (CEPLI), was the chair of the session.
The conference begun with the intervention of Dorotheé Allain-Dupré (Project-Manager – Public Investment & Multi-level Governance, Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, OECD), where she talked about the actions developed by the OECD to face the challenges linked to multi-level governance of governance. She mentioned two important tools, a guide to coordinate across governments and policy areas and a toolkit for peer building (dissemination of good practices), capacity building and monitoring public investments.
The EIB and the European Commission
Simon Barnes (Director Advisory Services / fi-compass, European Investment Bank) explained briefly the main aspects of the financial advice to local entities of the EIB, such as supporting for projects and investments, enlace use of EU funds or improve access to finance. Mr. Barnes highlighted the great opportunity that the new financial plan of the European Commission offered to local intermediate administrations, but the big challenge that it is too.
After that it was time for the intervention of Manuela Geleng (Head of Unit ESF Policy and Legislation, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission) and she explained their objective, renovate and modernize public administrations to improve the business environment and thus rise investment.
The conference was closed by Bogdam Nawrocki (Deputy Director in the Debt and Financial Policy Department, City of Warsaw, Poland). Mr. Nawrocki presented the Programme of Development made by the City of Warsaw that tries to improve the efficiency in the Polish cities and with the objective of making the improve the metropolitan organisation, with a collaboration between the academic sector and the public administrations.
