A few days ahead of the informal meeting of EU ministers responsible for Cohesion Policy in Murcia (Spain), cities and regions put forward their first requests on how this crucial policy should look like in the future. A reformed Cohesion Policy must tackle emerging inequalities, be simpler and firmly rooted in EU territories. The current macroeconomic conditionality should be eliminated, and a new emergency mechanism for the use of funds should be created to give local administrators the flexibility to cope with unexpected crises. ​ 

The European Commission has today unveiled the winners of the second edition of the EU Organic Awards, promoting excellence along the organic agriculture value chain. A jury involving representatives of the EU's executive and of the European Committee of the Regions, has selected Burgenland as Europe's best organic region, Vienna as the best organic city, and the Portuguese municipality of Idanha-a-Nova as best organic district. 

Support for Ukraine dominated discussions of local and regional leaders from across the European Union when they met in the European Capital of Culture on 18-19 September, with strong calls for an increase in the EU's long-term funding for Ukraine to enable its reconstruction, strengthen its decentralisation process and support it along its path towards European accession.​​ 

​The reaction of the President of the European Committee of the Regions, Vasco Alves Cordeiro, to the State of the EU speech delivered by the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen. "Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union speech comes at a time, when people across many cities and regions in Europe need to cope with the consequences of rising costs, disasters and extreme weathers, and many more uncertainties. In Europe's cities and regions, people need to be offered perspectives with a visible, tangible support of the European Union.  

The European Committee of the Regions, together with the Free State of Saxony, has today launched the European Semiconductor Regions Alliance – a political network of regions engaged to strengthen Europe’s capacity to produce semiconductors and microelectronics, reducing its dependency from supplies from third countries. The Alliance aims to identify and help remove the obstacles to the industry’s strategic development by improving the legal framework, promoting public and private investment, supporting the sharing of knowledge and the development of strong and resilient value chains.  

Eastern Partnership viewed as a cornerstone of EU relations with the region at a moment when war, pandemic, and economic transitions are testing cities' and regions' resilience and decentralisation processes. Local and regional governments in the Black Sea region and Caucasus need additional support as they try to cope with war and instability across the region, local and regional leaders said on 7 September at the annual meeting of the Conference of Regional and Local Authorities for the Eastern Partnership (CORLEAP).