Euroalert experience at the Open Days 2011

Once again, Euroalert has taken part at the Open Days 2011, the European week of Regions and Cities, and our experience, once again, has been very positive. The 9th edition of the Open Days has been a great success that has served to bring together experts and participants from across Europe. The 100 workshops organised with around 6000 participants were aimed at discussing many topics with a single goal, discussing how regions and cities can achieve sustainable growth and thus, help the EU out of the current crisis that we face. At the workshops, we heard ideas to achieve such goal, for example the creation of clusters with public-private funding (PPP) such as the one conducted by Castilla y León (Spain) to make real the “e-vehicle”. With this initiative, Castilla y León proposes a measure to improve the economy without forgetting the respect for the environment. In addition, many wondered at seminars how it would be possible getting out the European regions and cities of the crisis in compliance with this objective, i.e., how to create a truly sustainable economy and not just from an environmental point of view. Another idea heard at the Open Days was the creation of Euroregions, such as the Baltic Sea Euroregion or Pyrenees Mediterranean Euroregion. They consist in associations between border regions to get assistance to citizens more effectively. The associations are determined by the rule of the 150 km adopted by the European Commission, which means that partnerships can be formed only within an area of ​​150 km. Regional and local authorities do not agreed with this limit and asked the Commission representative during the workshop to remove such rule.

The shadow of the economic crisis has been very present throughout the week. Euroalert had the opportunity to ask the President of the Committee of the Regions herself, Mercedes Bresso, how the European Commission can help in the next budgetary period to the regions and cities at getting out of the current crisis. Ms Bresso recognized that the proposal of the Commission for the budget period 2014-2020 is quite good and defended the temporary creation of the intermediate regions concept. With the creation of this new category, she does not mean that more European funds will be granted to the regions; only an efficient way to distribute them. We thank to the president her kindness for making possible this interview.

In addition to attending a few seminars, Euroalert also had time to tweet the Open Days through the official event hashtag #euopendays, and thus, help you to watch live this great celebration of the regions and cities. Unfortunately there were not many "tweeters" telling what was happening at the Open Days, especially to find out what was being said within the workshops that we could not attend because an overlapping of the schedules. In any case, as in previous years, we thank you for your follow-up and also for the conversations we had in live via Twitter.

We hope you enjoyed our information through our news and tweets, and please, keep reading us in the coming days because Euroalert will tell you more about the topics discussed during the Open Days, such as the workshop on the future of micro-credit, the workshop on how to communicate regional policy today and after 2013 or the workshop how to perform better evaluations of structural funds expenditure by the regions.

Once again, Euroalert.net is going to be at the Open Days 2011, the most important annual event for European regions

Next week, from 10 to 13 October, it is going to take place in Brussels the most important annual event for European regions and municipalities, the Open Days 2011. Of course, Euroalert is going to be there to attend as many workshops and activities as we can during those days. As we published in Euroalert last July, the week of the regions is dedicated on this occasion to 'Investing in Europe's future: Regions and cities delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth'. The Committee of the Regions and the European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy, in partnership with regions and cities from all over Europe, are organizing this important event in which more than 6,000 professionals will share experiences, information and best practices through about 100 workshops launched for the occasion.

And of course, Euroalert is going to have an active presence in the Open Days 2011. Euroalert team is covering the event on 'live' via Twitter and also with the regular publication of news. Among the workshops to be covered, Euroalert is going to attend one in which the Committee of the Regions' initiative 'Entrepreneurial Region of Europe' and the 'Small Business Act' are going to be explained. Also Euroalert is attending to the 'Financial Instruments enhancing access to RDI for companies to achieve Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative' workshop, in order to keep informed our readers on this topic. As you know, Euroalert provides information on the latest EU call for proposals opened and EU funding instruments is a very relevant topic to the Euroalert community.

These workshops and many others will be followed on live by Euroalert team. In addition to our Twitter and news coverage, we will tell you our experience on the Open Days 2011 through this blog, as we did in October 2010 and also in October 2009.  If you are taking part at the Open Days 2011 in Brussels and you want to contact us so we can attend your event or you'd like to talk about Euroalert products and services, you can always send us a direct message via Twitter or drop us an e-mail. In all the cases, we hope to provide as much information on what's happening during the Open Days 2011 as we can. And live! See you at the biggest event for regions!