​At its meeting on 11 October 2016 the Interregional Group on the Less Developed Regions at the CoR Chaired by Mr Tadeusz Truskolaski, EA coordinator for ECON commission and the President of Białystok aproved the position paper on cohesion policy post 2020. It was followed by the discussion with President of the Committee of the Regions Mr Markku Markulla and Head of Cabinet of the Commissioner for Regional Policy Mr Nicola De Michelis.
 
As President of the Interregional Group Mr Truskolaski said: "We share the believe that a strong and well-designed at the European level policy concentrated on the development challenges of the less developed regions is an indispensable tool for ensuring growth in all regions of the European Union. The less developed regions face increasing budgetary constraints and without the European support the disparities among regions would only grow, threatening stability of the Union. Therefore, a strong regional policy, equipped with sufficient funds, is needed to provide internal stability and finally will re-assure all European citizens about the positive effects of European integration.
 
Strong European regional policy is currently needed even more. Further maintaining its main objective - which is addressing the need for cohesion between all of European regions - will be an important part of the European stabilisation and response to the emerging challenges and crises, like migration within the EU, unemployment, demography and slow economic recovery. Identification and implementation of projects addressing the challenges always requires strong involvement of local and regional actors. Whilst a centralised approach might seem to be a more straightforward and focused answer, it can never be as efficient and cost-effective as using those cohesion policy management and control systems which function well and using the European funds to integrate the European-wide objectives into their development policies. Such an approach could not only provide ownership and save on staff costs but could also ensure that the same funds can deliver simultaneously on more than one objective. The positive effects of the support would not be diminished by uncoordinated activities in different areas.
 
The effectiveness and integration of emerging challenges can only be achieved if accompanied by re-thinking and streamlining the implementation systems. The changes introduced for the 2014-2020 period seriously strengthened the focus of the policy on the key European challenges, its links with the overall economic governance and financial responsibility of local and regional authorities, but it is evident that the piling up of procedures resulted in significant delays in starting of implementation with the authorities and project promoters struggling with numerous overlapping requirements, many of which have very limited value added.".
 
Currently, the Intergroup has 34 full and alternate members of the Committee of the Regions from Portugal, Romania, Croatia, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Czech Republic, Greece, Lithuania and Slovenia.