In a world of fast-moving competition, research and innovation lead to (...)
In a world of fast-moving competition, research and innovation lead to progress, growth and employment. But to develop knowledge even sooner and to a greater extent, we must mobilise our expertise through networks.
The Regions - which have become key players within the European Union - are expected to play a major role to enable this ambitious project to succeed.
United by common interests and priorities, the French Regions of Midi-Pyrénées and Languedoc-Roussillon, together with the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, Aragon and the Balearic Islands, are working together to make themselves heard within EU institutions by speaking with ’one voice’, with a view to sharing a common future and increasingly finding common solutions to their problems.
In order to reinforce their profile and influence in Europe, they joined together on 29 October 2004 to establish the Pyrénées-Méditerranée Euroregion.
Today, this youthful Euroregion forms an arc across southern Europe encompassing the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean basin and representing over 13 million citizens.
It aims to become a regional focus for innovation and sustainable growth, based on ties fostered between the different industrial, scientific, technological and cultural centres in the Euroregion’s territories.
The essential ambitions of the partner Regions are to boost competitiveness, increase territorial cooperation in a globalisation context and benefit from European programmes through joint responses to calls for projects.
With this in mind, we have decided to organise a Euroregion Congress, on the 3 and 4 December 2007, which will be devoted to research, innovation and business in the fields of Information and Communications Technology (ICT).
The two highlights of this major event, which will be attended by the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Professor Danuta HÃœBNER, will be :
- the transfer of the Euroregion Presidency from Midi-Pyrénées to the government of the Balearic Islands,
- an introduction to the European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) which will provide the Euroregion with a joint organisational structure and the status of legal entity. The EGTC was established by the European Union as a new cooperation initiative and a powerful symbol of the importance of Regions in Europe. It will enable us to face the new challenges raised by integration, while forging an influential regional representative, whose members share the same ambitions.
I wish every success to this Euroregion Congress and hope that it will, above all, enable the promising research networks of tomorrow to be established.
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M. Martin MALVY
Former Minister
President of the Midi-Pyrénées Region
President of the Pyrénées-Méditerranée Euroregion
