Macro-regional strategies across Europe

Key points:

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) believes:

• that the macro-regional strategies can help improve economic competitiveness, give a much needed boost to GDP, and also increase European added value;
• that the macro-regional strategies have an increasing role to play in the future of the EU;
• therefore, that it is clearly necessary to develop macro-regional strategies at European level.

The EESC recommends:

• that the European Council advocate the integration of macro-regional policy into the EU's governance structure and call for EU-wide guidelines to be drawn up with a view to defining a macro-regional development strategy to support economic and social development;
• strengthening the European governance structure by involving civil society and municipal and regional authorities at each stage in the decision-making process, alongside the high-level coordination group made up of representatives of the 28 countries, which is responsible for macro-regional management.