The European Committee of the Regions has decided that Władysław Ortyl, Marshal of the Podkarpackie region in Poland and chair of the Polish delegation in the ECR Group, will be its spokesperson on the launch of a Carpathian macro-regional strategy.

The European local and regional politicians took this decision on 25 June. They also decided that the final position paper will be adopted by the European Committee of the Regions in December this year.

Speaking at the Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy and EU Budget of the CoR in Brussels, Marshal Ortyl declared that the Carpathian strategy would offer a response to the main needs of the Carpathian region, in particular the need to improve quality of life and stimulate the local economy.

According to the Marshal, the Carpathians offer great potential for Europe and can provide economic momentum, but at the same time it is a poor region with weak infrastructure, and its development is therefore limited.

“There is, of course, a need for resources, because the extent to which infrastructure has been neglected in the Carpathians is quite considerable. We also need to protect the nature and heritage of this area. Let us not forget that the Carpathians are a great reservoir of water for Europe. Looking after water resources in the Carpathians helps the entire region," he pointed out.

The Marshal stressed that the activities linked to the launch of the Carpathian Strategy stem from a pragmatic vision and positive example as well as the good practices of this instrument that were gathered and implemented in the Alps. “The CoR is the place where the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region was born," he pointed out.

He explained that, for the time being, lobbying for a similar instrument for the Carpathians is aimed purely at gaining the government's support, since only a joint initiative by states means that the European Commission will have to take up the proposal.

Crucially, the Marshal underlined that "creating a new macro-regional strategy cannot make it more difficult for the existing strategies to function". In his words: "A macro-regional strategy for the Carpathian region would complement the actions undertaken in the framework of the Danube strategy, taking into account the specificities of the mountainous Carpathian area".

The Carpathian Strategy has the potential to become the EU's fifth macro-regional strategy and the second mountain strategy (after the Alpine strategy). Such strategies are an important part of European territorial cooperation in the EU. The Carpathian Strategy would strengthen cooperation on the north-south axis, while at the same time being part of the Three Seas Initiative.

The EU currently has four macro-regional strategies: EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (2009), EU Strategy for the Danube Region (2011), EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (2014) and the EU Strategy for the Alpine Region (2015).