The European Committee of the Regions has called for a halt to the revision of EU rules for public procurement, on the grounds that the latest reforms the EU are still young and are falling short in significant ways. In recommendations adopted on 8 October, the EU's assembly for local and regional authorities said that, without imposing new rules, the EU could address important problems by easing access for medium-sized companies and encouraging harmonisation through, for instance, labelling schemes.

Small businesses need broader and longer-term action from the European Union to help them scale up their operations, gain access to public tenders, and benefit more from the single market, the European Committee of the Regions argues in a set of recommendations intended to feed into a strategy planned by the incoming president of the European Commission.

​The needs of Europe's coal regions in the context of the EU's energy transition were at the top of the agenda of the European Committee of the Regions' (CoR) commission for economic policy (ECON) on 9 July in Brussels. In an opinion drawn up by Mark Speich, Secretary of State for Federal, European and International Affairs from North Rhine Westphalia, ECON members called for adjusted state aid rules and additional funding for affected regions in the framework of cohesion policy 2021-2027.