The European Commission has recently issued a Staff Working Document aimed at providing operational and methodological guidance on how to address the territorial implications of policy proposals deemed to have territorial impacts.
In the recent years the issue of regional diversity and the need for in-depth assessment of the territorial and regional effects of EU sectorial policies have been the focus of the European policy debate. In particular, the need to coordinate all sectoral policies that have a strong territorial impact and to measure the territorial impact of those policies is essential for the development of territorial cohesion and for the reinforcement of economic and social cohesion.
The Committee of the Regions has already underlined the need to take into account the territorial impact of EU policies from their inception and further involve local and regional authorities in the pre-legislative phase of the EU decision making process. Given the importance of the issues at stake, the Committee of the Regions is currently preparing an own initiative opinion on "Assessment on territorial impacts", for which Michael Schneider (DE/EPP) has been appointed as CoR rapporteur within the COTER commission. A targeted consultation of local and regional authorities has just been launched and will be open until 20 March. Respondents will have the opportunity to submit their positions to the rapporteur by sending their contributions to subsidiarity@cor.europa.eu
An exchange of views on this dossier is foreseen at the next COTER commission meeting on 26 February, which will be followed by the first discussion and adoption of the draft opinion on 7 May and by the adoption of the final opinion in the CoR plenary session on 3 or 4 July 2013