This first ever hybrid edition of the European Week of Regions and Cities has come to an end.
It was wonderful to welcome almost 2.000 participants onsite and almost 20.000 online.
With its 500 partners, 16 stands, 1283 speakers and moderators, 122 video testimonials, the activities of this year have addressed the New challenges for Europe’s cohesion focusing mainly on 4 themes: green transition, territorial cohesion, digital transition and youth empowerment.
The Opening session was the first high-level debate of the week, hosted at the European Parliament. The European Committee of the Regions President Vasco Alves Cordeiro, European Commissioner Elisa Ferreira, the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola and EP REGI Chair Younous Omarjee joined the debate with local and regional politicians, showcasing the relevance of Cohesion policy in the current context and looking towards the future.
During an intergenerational Citizens’ Dialogue, European Commissioner Elisa Ferreira and representatives of European citizens have exchanged ideas on how cohesion policy is actually perceived on the ground and have exchanged concerns on what still needs to be done. The current interest in youngest generations should not fade. The EU digital strategy should not forget rural areas, nor put aside the greening of its carbon footprint. Commissioner finally stressed on the importance of the EURegionsWeek in feeding the debate on the future of cohesion policy.
For the 4th year, EURegionsWeek has hosted the Awards Ceremony of the Megalizzi-Niedzielski prize for aspiring journalists to honour the memory of Antonio Megalizzi and Bartek Piotr Orent-Niedzielski. The prize aims to reward and encourage promising journalists that share Antonio and Bartek's enthusiasm for the European project and the EU Regional policy in particular. We hope that this year winners, Ani Arveladze (Georgia) and Laura Bannier (France), will follow the example set by Antonio and Bartek.
During the Joint annual REGI-COTER meeting, Members of the European Parliament and the European Committee of the Regions looked together with Commissioner Elisa Ferreira at the state of play of the programming and implementation of cohesion policy, as well as the initiatives to face the impact on regions and cities of the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Finally, the Closing session has harvested the conclusions of “this exciting week where so much was debated and so many people contributed to foster the cause of Regions and Cities in Europe”. The session has been structured around the four themes of the EURegionsWeek 2022, green transition, territorial cohesion, digital transition and youth empowerment, together with the crisis response management role of the cohesion policy. Headlines videos have captured some of the main moments of the week and have renewed inspiration for the many participants both onsite and online.
All recordings of sessions and high-level events are available in English, French and German.
We look forward to welcoming you in 2023!
