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This CoR opinion responds to a request by the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council to express its views on a "territorial vision 2050: what future?" In this respect, the opinion discusses the territorial dimension of policy-making and the need for a European territorial vision.
The objective of this opinion is to present the opinion of local and regional authorities on the Territorial Agenda of the EU and to put territorial matters on the agenda of EU policy-making.

On 22 January 2016, in a letter from the Commissioner, Ms Crețu, to the CoR President, Mr Markkula, the Commissioner has taken good note of the Committee of the Regions' call for a new and more coordinated territorial strategy for the European Union. She outlined that the issues of governance and place-based approach addressed in the opinion were indeed crucial when tackling spatial planning and territorial development. In this regard, the Commission would continue to pay close attention to the involvement of local and regional authorities. Moreover, DG REGIO services are currently preparing a detailed follow-up analysis to the opinion.

The draft opinion was presented to the informal meeting of ministers responsible for territorial cohesion policy on 26 November 2015 in Luxembourg and to the meeting of Directors-General responsible for Cohesion policy on 20 October 2015 in Luxembourg. The incoming Slovak Presidency uses this CoR opinion to prepare the meetings of the Network of Territorial Cohesion contact points (NTCCP) and the meeting of Director-Generals responsible for territorial matters.

The rapporteur presented the opinion at the Congress of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) on 20-22 April. The CoR's input will input will contribute to enrich the CEMR Bluebook that CEMR are planning to publish after the beginning of next year.

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

- believes that more than 15 years after the European Spatial Development Perspective adopted in Potsdam in 1999 the European Union needs a new territorial vision;

- calls for a broad Europe-wide consultation on the future territorial vision of the European Union building on the Green Paper on Territorial Cohesion (COM(2008) 616 final) and reiterates its call for a White Paper on Territorial Cohesion;

- stresses that the majority of EU policies have a regional and local dimension which can be assessed through a Territorial Impact Assessment (TIA) and should be taken into account when these policies are being designed and revised;

- requests that Member States and the European Union invest considerably more resources to acquire the missing statistical data reflecting various territorial challenges and strongly develop data collection at the lowest administrative level. The CoR reiterates the need to decrease the administrative burden on various stakeholders, including local and regional authorities, by developing suitable tools to enable collection of statistical data and reporting to be made more rigorously and selectively systematic, in order to streamline processing;

- underlines that the place-based approach entails specific roles for actors at different levels of governance. Spatial planning and development strategies should always take into account the level closest to the people, which in most cases means the local or regional levels;

- a more cohesive and coordinated approach to European territorial Strategy/Vision at European level is needed;

– finally, believes that a European Strategy/Vision must evolve constantly, notably by using bottom-up feedback provided by continuous cooperation with European and national associations representing local and regional authorities and by taking into account global developments such as the challenges of migration and climate change.