Territorial cohesion

Fair opportunities for all European citizens, where ever they live or work

"...people should not be disadvantaged wherever they live or work in the Union "..."The concept of territorial cohesion extends beyond the notion of economic and social cohesion by both adding to this and reinforcing it. In policy terms, the objective is to help achieve a more balanced development by reducing existing disparities, avoiding territorial imbalances and by making both sectoral policies which have a spatial impact and regional policy more coherent. The concern is also to improve territorial integration and encourage cooperation between regions."

3rd Cohesion Report, European Commission, 2004

A particular attention for specific territories

"In order to promote its overall harmonious development, the Union shall develop and pursue its actions leading to the strengthening of its economic, social and territorial cohesion. In particular, the Union shall aim at reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least favoured regions. Among the regions concerned, particular attention shall be paid to rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition, and regions which suffer from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps such as the northernmost regions with very low population density and island, cross-border and mountain regions."

Treaty on the functioning of the European Union, article 174, 2010

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Our actions

Territorial cohesion is a transversal objective: every Euromontana activity aims to contribute to this objective. We simply list here activities that are explicitely dedicated to this theme.

Policy - representation

Euromontana has since its creation influenced the debate that led to the inclusion of the objective of territorial cohesion in the Treaty on the functionning of the EU.

Since then, the network has contributed actively to the different steps of the policy-making process on territorial cohesion:

Consultation on the green paper on territorial cohesion 2008: read Euromontana’s response
Consultation on the Vth Cohesion report: read Euromontana’s response

To this end, it collaborates with "Group 174", an informal network of European organisations and networks representing mountains, islands and sparsely populated areas. These organisations pool their strengths and expertise to promote a constructive approach of development of these territories and to offer concrete proposals to the institutions.

These organisations notably contribute in a joint manner to the work of the Intergroup "Mountains, islands and sparsely populated areas " constituted at the European Parliament in 2009 and chaired by Boguslav Sonik (EPP).

The last meeting of the Parliament Intergroup on the 3rd of February 2011 gave DG REGIO an opportunity to present officially its intention as regards the concrete implementation of the territorial cohesion objective in the future cohesion policy.

See the presentation from Wladyslaw Piskorz, 3rd February 2011
Visit the Intergroup website

The Commission is now studying the contributions received from the different stakeholders and will prepare legislative proposals for June 2011.

The European Commission has also open a revision process on other fields of high relevance to mountains and territorial cohesion such as regional aid guidelines. Euromontana will dedicate specific attention to this issue in 2011.

Projects & studies

Euromontana has conducted in 2008 a preliminary appraisal in preparation for the green paper and which led to a reference report:

The role of mountain regions and territorial cohesion: a contribution to the discussion on the Green paper on territorial cohesion, Thomas Dax, Federal Institute for less favoured and mountainous, April 2008.

Euromontana follows and contributes to the work of several ESPON projects:

ESPON Territorial Diversity: Euromontana actively participated, as observer, in the steering committee of this project which delivered:
- a final report
- a handbook of territorial diversity

ESPON Geospecs– Geographic specificities: Euromontana contributes to consultations organised in the framework of this project.
ESPON INTERCO- Indicateurs of territorial cohesion: Euromontana participated in a stakeholders meeting organised on the 14th of January 2011.