​On 10th of December, the Commission for Economic Development (ECON) of the Committee of the Regions approved the draft Resolution on the 2016 Annual Growth Survey. Ms. Maria João Rodrigues, the EP rapporteur on the 2016 AGS, was invited to join the discussion with ECON members.
 
EA coordinator for ECON and Mayor of Białystok, Mr Tadeusz Truskolaski, welcomed the fact the EP report captures the geographical diverse economic recovery in Europe and underlined the fact that, at the moment, there is still a Europe of different speeds. In order to address this problem, efficient investment flows are required.
 
'Investments are very important at grassroots level', Mr. Truskolaski added, while underlining that the specific socio-economic circumstances in which investments take place have to be considered in order to evaluate the most appropriate type of investment for the region.
 
Mr Tadeusz Truskolaski highlighted the important role of the regional and local dimension for achieving the Europe 2020 strategy's goals and he appealed to Mrs. Rodrigues during her further work on the Report of the European Parliament to consider the demand to incorporate the local and regional dimension in the final text of the document.

 "I also encourage you to adopt changes to this document taking account the fact that the EU is still not uniform and has different speeds of development. The pursuit of a vision of a Europe, rapidly growing and innovative, requires the use of various tools that will best be able to be chosen by the local and regional authorities. " – he underlined.