Michael Murphy was elected chair of the European Committee of the Regions' Commission for Economic Policy (ECON) at the Committee´s constitutive meeting on 13 February. Mr Murphy, member of the Tipperary County Council, will chair the ECON commission's work during the first 2,5 years of the new five-year mandate.

​Promoting entrepreneurship across different sectors and territories and strengthening regional entrepreneurial ecosystems should remain the key objectives of the EU's future programme for supporting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). At the same time, synergies between different funding instruments need to be improved to support emerging industries and to foster regional economic growth through smart specialisation, First Vice-President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) Markku Markkula said in Rovaniemi, Finland.