Around 130 participants attended the 5th annual meeting of the EGTC Platform, focusing on the role of the EGTCs and the employment.

Raffaele Cattaneo (IT/EPP), new chair of the Commission COTER of the CoR and political coordinator of the Platform, chaired the meeting: "The unemployment and its dramatic social impact is the litmus test of the European Union. We cannot ignore this in our priorities, and it is normal that all the public authorities, including the EGTCs, work together in generating growth and jobs". 

Mr Cattaneo drew the attention to the "lack of data and information about the borders" in the 6th Cohesion report, "but the crisis has enlarged the gaps" he said, underlining divergent growth in both sides of some borders and that "the number of cross-border commuters is growing, but the trends are asymmetric".

Corina Creţu, Commissioner of Regional Policy, addressed a video message to the participants recalling the 25 years of Interreg and "the vanguard role played by the EGTCs". "Too many Europeans have lost their jobs or are afraid of losing them", said the Commissioner, "the challenge is considerable but so is the potential of the EGTCs".

Joachim Zeller, MEP (DE/EPP) encouraged to exploit all the potential of the revised Regulation on the EGTC, where he acted as rapporteur in the Parliament, and on the visibility: "Many MEPs and even officials of the European Commission look surprised when they hear about the EGTCs". He insisted

Jeroen Jutte, Head of Unit in the Directorate General of Employment, presented the agenda of the Commission Juncker in employment and social policy identifying the use of the ESF, the national reforms programs and in particular the European Youth Initiative.

Peter Hansen, expert from the Danish Region of Sønderjylland-Schleswig representing the AEBR, provided the cross-border vision of the employment policies. Mr Hansen explained the different difficulties met by the border regions when implementing cross-border actions in this field, in a situation of imbalances between the supply and demand in many regions, different in social aids and also flows of asylum seekers and refugees. The EGTCs have a big potential here in giving concrete answers to the regions and to the workers: online and personalized information, mutual recognition of degrees, personal advice to the work-seekers and training for the public administrations. Many of these points were incorporated to the CoR opinion of Karl-Heinz Lambertz (BE/PES) on cross-border labor mobility.

Elena Pascual, official from DG Employment, presented the European Job Mobility service EURES and the possibilities open to establish partnerships between EURES and the EGTCs in border territories. The CoR adopted recently an opinion drafted by José Ramón Bauzá (ES/EPP).

Mikel Antón, on behalf of the EGTC Aquitaine-Euskadi, Patrice Harster, on behalf of the Eurodistrict Regio PAMINA, and María Geraldes, director of the EGTC Galicia-Norte de Portugal, presented concrete examples of the EGTCs launching employment policies. Dirk Peters, representing DG Regio at the European Commission, closed the session, underlined the potential of the EGTCs using the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund in the different Operational Programmes, currently under adoption.

The EGTCs in Innovation Procurement

The EGTCs participated in an afternoon briefing about the call Innovation Procurement of Horizon 2020, where the Regulation specifies that they are eligible. Viorel Peca and Vassileos Tsanidis, from DG Connect, explained the opportunities of this call for the EGTCs, as they group similar public administrations from different countries, so they can identify common needs where they can to innovation via public procurement.