Danuta Hübner, EU Commissioner for regional policy, presented the “Third Report of Progress on Cohesion: towards a new partnership for growth, employment and cohesion”, more commonly known as “Report on the state of the Regions”, at a press conference in Brussels on 17 May. The document analyses the development of the 242 European Regions in terms of levels of income, employment and productivity. It confirms the “great disparities in prosperity and employment in the enlarged Europe”, which account for the fact that “almost 140 million European citizens live in Regions in which the average GDP is lower than 75% of the average GDP of the EU”. But one comforting finding is that the highest levels of growth are registered precisely in the most backward Regions, concentrated especially in Greece, Italy, Spain and eastern Germany as regards the old member states, and in the countries of enlargement. This effort risks however being seriously jeopardized if as seems likely the negotiations on the future funding of regional policy end with a lowest-common-denominator agreement (supported in primis by France, Germany and the UK). In this regard, the Commissioner made an appeal to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament “to reach an agreement on the financial prospects for 2007-2013 capable of responding adequately to the challenge of cohesion”. For further information: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/regional_policy/sources/docoffic/official/reports/pdf/interim3/com(2005)192full_fr.pdf
