Newsletter – n°11 – May 2012
Headlines
Upcoming Communication on local authorities in development announced
The EC announced that a Communication on local and regional authorities (LRA) will be published at the beginning of 2013. The Commission is very much looking forward to receiving LRA’s contribution and therefore seeks a strong partnership with PLATFORMA.
Together with its partners, PLATFORMA will hold a series of consultation in the next few months and with the Commission will work towards ensuring that the Communication is timely to impact the negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council and the programming for 2014-2020.
This announcement was made during the first meeting of the Policy Forum and follows repeated concerns expressed by PLATFORMA, as well as by the European Parliament, at the fact that the preparatory consultation for the Communication of October 2012exclusively concerned civil society organisations, as underlined in the political statement adopted at the end of the Florence Forum last April.
During an encounter with civil society and LRA platforms, to debrief the Foreign Affairs Council meeting of 14 May, Commissioner for development Andris Piebalgs confirmed that following the Communication on LRA dated October 2008, a new one will revise the engagement strategy of the European Commission with local and regional authorities.
