Date / Heure
Date(s) - 07 Jun 2017
Toute la journée
Emplacement
Albert Borschette Congress Center (CCAB)
Context and objectives of the conference
Mountains cover nearly 30% of the EU territory and are home to roughly 17% of the EU population.
Mountain territories have strong innovation and growth potential in areas of key importance to the European Union’s 2020 strategy. Exploiting fully this potential requires active, ambitious and targeted policies, which help mountain areas to overcome constraints related to difficult geography and a changing climate, constraints that mean that every action is more expensive to implement than in lowland areas.
The Cohesion policy aims “at reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least favoured regions” and states that “particular attention shall be paid to (…) mountain regions” according to the article 174 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the EU. Thus, the Cohesion policy has a key role to play in addressing the specific challenges of mountain areas. Macro regional strategies, in this context, play a key role.
2017 is a turning point, with discussion being started on the future of Cohesion policy. Numerous reports feed the debate on how to maintain and reinforce the EU Cohesion policy, in particular in the current challenging financial context. Now is the time to demonstrate that mountain areas can contribute to and benefit from the Cohesion policy.
With some concrete examples and good practices, this conference will present the innovative potential of mountain areas and show how they can continue to be active contributors in the achievement of the EU2020 objectives and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
This conference will reflect on how to develop a more place-based and territorial integrated approach for the EU Cohesion policy based on governance experiences at local, regional, national and EU levels. Finally, the conference will present examples of solutions to some of the specific challenges facing mountain areas today.
We hope, through this conference, to help decision makers and mountain residents themselves find promising solutions to better implement Cohesion policy in the future.
This conference is organised jointly by the European Commission (DG REGIO) and Euromontana.
Background document
Presentations
- Iliana Iotova, Vice-President of Bulgaria: The role of mountains in the future Cohesion policy
- Gauthier Mestrallet, Director General of Tri Vallées enterprise: Successful example of recycling ski material
- Marie Clotteau, Director of Euromontana: How to encourage ICT applications and high-speed broadband in mountain areas?
- Jan Dröge, Director of Broadband Competence Offices Support Facility: How to facilitate access to broadband in mountain areas ?
- Jose Manuel Hernandez Luque, DG AGRI, Unit F.1 Initiatives for rural and remote areas including Smart Villages
- Guido Giardini, Responsible Mountain Medicine Centre: Example of telemedicine in Valle d’Aosta region
- Raul Cazan, Member of 2Celsius Network: Mountain areas are the sentinels of climate change
- Dina Silina, DG CLIMA: EU policy on adaptation to climate change and related financial opportunities for the territories
- Sandor Szalai, Chairman of the Working Group on Adaptation to Climate Change, Carpathian Convention: Example of Risk Management in the Carpathians
- Peter Takacs, DG REGIO, Inclusive Growth, Urban and Territorial Development
Proceedings
- The proceedings of the conference including a summary of each speaker’s presentation are available here (in PDF)
Photos
- Pictures of the event from Euromontana : click here
- Pictures from the European Commission: click here
For more information, please contact Euromontana Secretariat: communication@euromontana.org
