​On 12 May, during the COTER meeting, Kieran McCarthy, EA member on the EU2020 Steering group presented the survey on the involvement of LRAs in the design and implementation of operational programmes which feed into a CoR opinion.
 
The Cork city councillor, while presenting the findings of the survey, said: "While some LRAs have been involved in the preparation of Partnership agreements and operational programmes in their respective countries, we are still far from the ideal situation whereby a true multilevel governance approach is applied. Priorities included in the PAs and OPs do not often reflect local priorities and need for localised investments in municipalities and smaller villages. Besides the inefficient cooperation between level of governance, LRAs lack qualified staff and human resources to deal with (still complex) procedures. Hence, municipalities need to be supported both from central government and the EU".