On 29 September the COTER commission and the European Parliament TRAN committee held their first joint meeting on the topic of missing transport infrastructure links in border regions.
EA member and Shetland islands leader Cllr Gary Robinson, underlined the importance for the EU funding instrument Connecting Europe facility (CEF) to cover improvements of transport links in geographically challenged regions such as remote islands and mountains.
EU aid is of critical importance to achieve territorial cohesion and ensure local investment in transport infrastructure are carried also in those areas that need most and where market fails.
The COTER members also discussed the draft opinion on the future of cohesion policy. Mr Truskolaski, Chairman of the intergroup on the less developed regions underlined the importance for cohesion policy to support all regions.
He said that simplification is key for cohesion policy to be successful. We have to get back to basics. We need quick solutions as at the moment it takes far too long for EU aid to be disbursed. A few months after Poland joined the EU my region could quickly benefit of EU funding whilst at the moment we have still been waiting for resources to be released under the current programming period. Procedures have got more and more complex, he added.
