President Marco Marsilio is leading the CoR's work on the opinion "A Just Transition for all EU regions" and in his capacity as rapporteur the Abruzzo President is focusing on safeguarding Europe's competitiveness and resilience. For the ECR President, "technology neutrality and a strong involvement of the regions" should be at the core of EU policies to address the plethora of green transition related challenges. In that regard, one of the key demands of his draft opinion is for the scope of the Just Transition Fund (JTF) to be expanded to include other sectors affected by the transition, in particular the automotive and supplier industries.

With the beginning of the new political cycle of the EU institutions, Mr Marsilio emphasised that the just transition strand should be a part of the reformed Cohesion Policy post-2027 to adopt innovative design and delivery approaches to address regional transitions, while anticipating changes and helping territories struggling with the transformation of strategic, energy-intensive, greenhouse gas-emitting, and labour-intensive industries. This is why the opinion of the President of the Abruzzo region includes a call for the next European Commission to come forward with the necessary proposal to ensure the continuity of the fair transition mechanism and its allocation of sufficient and additional funds for energy-intensive industries and regions.

"Only by promoting local and territory-based solutions, actively involving citizens and defending the principle of technological neutrality, we can make the transition just and beneficial for all EU regions without hindering Europe's competitiveness on the global stage" – concluded the ECR President.

Mr Marsilio's opinion was today adopted by members of the Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy and EU Budget (COTER) and will be up for adoption at the October CoR plenary session. 

photo: © European Union / David Martín Díaz