Regions want to be involved in crisis management

Publication date: 24 June 2009

The European regions concerned by the crisis in the automotive sector have called on the European Commission to propose a common European approach for the sector that would involve the local and regional authorities, a wide range of social actors and the industry. The request was drawn up by the Automotive Crisis Intergroup of the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and submitted by the CoR plenary session in a resolution adopted on 18 June. «To cope with this structural and economic crisis, we must act at all levels, national and European. The situation is too serious not to take action,» commented Jean-Yves Le Drian, intergroup chair and president of the French Region of Brittany, home to one of the biggest plants of the French group PSA Peugeot Citroën.

The CoR resolution regrets the «inadequacy» of instruments to respond to the specific problems of small and medium-sized enterprises – and in particular automotive suppliers – and calls for their adaptation.

It also asks the Commission to promote networking between regions specialised in this sector through the ‘Regions for economic change’ instrument launched by the Commission in 2006, which enables networks of states, regions and cities to experiment with practices capable of supporting economic modernisation and the improvement of competitiveness.

The resolution also invites the Commission to include CoR representatives in Cars 21, the high-level group set up in 2005 and chaired by Günter Verheugen, the commissioner for industry and enterprises.

RESOLUTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS ON THE EUROPEAN RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR

Source :Europolitics