Transnational solutions at the heart of territorial cohesion and the Lisbon Strategy
The challenge for the North Sea Region is to design the new programme in a way that effectively capitalises on the unique potentials and competitive advantages of its regions and that it contributes to the goals of the Lisbon Strategy and the territorial agenda.
Spatial development in a regional perspective is a key issue for the current North Sea Programme, and will be even more so in the new Objective 3 North Sea Programme, 2007-2013. Finding innovative solutions to the challenges of territorial cohesion and regional spatial development is where the transnational added value of the North Sea Programme is achieved.
On the 28 June in Amsterdam, representatives from the North Sea Programme secretariat participated in the EU stakeholders conference under the Rotterdam agenda on territorial cohesion, which was launched under the Dutch EU Presidency in 2004. The event attracted about 150 stakeholders from all levels of government, the European Commission, universities and a variety of organisations.
The central issue discussed was the growing need to cooperate in Europe in order to exploit the territorial capital of the European regions in all their diversity in the light of the Lisbon aims.
The new EU objective of territorial cohesion is a key aim of the new Objective 3 North Sea Programme. The challenge for the North Sea Region is to design the new programme in a way that effectively capitalises on the unique potentials and competitive advantages of its regions and that it contributes to the goals of the Lisbon Strategy and the territorial agenda.
A key product of the agenda will be an assessment of 'the territorial state and perspectives of the Union' that will be adopted at the informal EU ministerial meeting on territorial cohesion and urban development in Leipzig on 24-25 May 2007.
Follow the process of developing a territorial agenda for Europe here:
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