Encouraging comments have been made this week by the European Commission regarding an analysis of the national strategic frameworks of reference presented by member states as part of the cohesion policy for the forthcoming period of programming of the Structural Funds. During a press conference in Brussels, “Making it happen, delivering cohesion policy 2007-2013”, the Commissioner for Regional Policy, Danuta Huebner, and the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Vladimir Spidla, said that “according to the preliminary estimates some 200 billion euros will be allocated directly to investments aimed at realising the Lisbon Agenda, of which 50 billion in the field of research, development and innovation and 70 billion for human capital”. Commissioner Spidla welcomed the fact that “member states have fully integrated the strategy adopted in concert with the Commission to realise the objectives of growth and employment”. Already 311 out of the planned national development programmes have been deposited in Brussels and are now in a phase of negotiation: 206 regard the European Fund of Regional Development (EFRD) and 105 the European Social Fund (ESF), for a partial budget of over 300 billion euros out of an overall endowment of 347.4 billion for the seven year period 2007-2013. A reduction of unemployment has also been registered in 2007. According to the latest data of Eurostat, the Statistics Office of the EU, the unemployment rate in February for the 13 Eurozone states fell to 7.3%, compared with 7.4% in the previous month. The total unemployed in Europe are now just over 17.2 million citizens.
