In meetings with the mayor of Rome, regional presidents and city councillors, President Tzitzikostas underscores Italy's role in leading the economic recovery
"The unprecedented volume of investments that is about to be allocated requires unprecedented cooperation between Brussels, Rome and the regions,"
President Apostolos Tzitzikostas
told Italian regional and local leaders during a visit to Rome on 9 December in which he also underlined the particular importance that Italy will play in the European Union's economic recovery from the pandemic.
The need for a culture of greater cooperation between governments at all
levels – national, regional, local and European – was a theme that ran
throughout meetings that spanned the CoR's three political priorities:
bringing Europe closer to people, building resilient communities, and
putting the EU at the service of its people and their places of living.
"The pandemic has strongly affected Italy, and its response is now
considered a model for other countries. The impressive reform plan and the
huge investments in the pipeline make this country a unique laboratory for
European recovery policies," President Tzitzikostas (EL/EPP) told
presidents of the Italian regions during a
specially convened meeting
of the Conference of the Regions. President Tzitzikostas is also Governor
of Central Macedonia.
President Tzitzikostas told Roberto Gualtieri, mayor of Rome since 21
October, whom he praised for his role – in a previous position as national
minister of the economy – in shaping the European recovery plan and Italy's
reforms.
Across the EU, however, the development of national plans within the EU's
economic recovery package has revealed weaknesses in collaboration between
the levels of government. "The involvement of regions and cities in
drafting plans has been inadequate in almost all member countries,"
President Tzitzikostas told Mayor Gualtieri. "Now that investments need to
be made in the field, collaboration between central, regional and local
governments is intensifying," President Tzitzikostas noted, but he warned
of the continuing danger that "overly centralised management risks damaging
the impact and coordination with other funds, such as those of cohesion
policy".
Mayor Gualtieri and President Tzitzikostas both participated in a
seminar
on the subject of international cooperation between cities and regions
organised in Rome's city hall, in Campidoglio, by the CoR and by the
president of the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI),
Vincenzo Bianco
. One of the objectives was to bring attention to the
Nicosia Initiative
created by the CoR, which since 2016 has been promoting cooperation between
European and Libyan cities. "We can be proud of the results achieved,
because, in addition to having created new partnerships to improve public
administrations and services to citizens in Libya, we have also helped our
fellow Libyan mayors to create a new positive dynamic of internal
dialogue," President Tzitzikostas said.
During his meetings, President Tzitzikostas also highlighted the CoR's
central ambition for the Conference on the Future of Europe, expressing the
hope that the nine-month consultation on some of the most substantive
policy issues facing Europeans will "bring the European decision-making
process closer to citizens and to the places where they live". The CoR has 18 representatives in the Conference and it is co-organising numerous events across the EU,
including citizens' panels.