1. ESPON TerrEvi project Jürgen Pucher, Metis GmbH
ESPON Internal Seminar 2013
“Territorial Evidence for Cohesion Policy
and Territorial Agenda 2020”
Workshop 3 – Territorial integration in cross-border and transnational functional regions
ESPON TerrEvi project
Jürgen Pucher, Metis GmbH

2. the project ESPON TerrEvi…
...develops a methodological concept for using (European) territorial evidence available
...focuses on producing evidence for Structural Funds programmes for more strategic, result-oriented programming for the post period
...therefore delivered 66 factsheets (53 CBC and 13 TNC) and 10 case studies (4 regional, 1 CBC and 5 TNC)
...project team delivered the draft final report in October 2013

3. more attention for…
...Macroregions and European groupings of territorial cooperation (EGTC)
...Macroregions and EGTC can be considered as relevant support for the use of structural funds (SF) in the field of territorial cooperation
...both can make crucial contribution to the Cohesion Policy of the EU in the next programming period

4. more attention for… ...Macroregions:
Macroregional strategies follow the principle of “no new money”. This should lead to a more efficient use of already existing money (for instance in ETC programmes)
For the next period the EC aims for the macroregions to strengthen the consistency of the different funds. The macroregional strategies could become a strategic/political project of European regional development
Territorial challenges do not stop at national and not even at transnational borders – water pollution as a main starting point of the Baltic Sea Region

5. more attention for… ...EGTC:
The draft EC Regulation Proposal on ETC mentions EGTCs as an important instrument for the ERDF to tackle local problems
EGTC are considered to be increasingly important for Cohesion Policy especially wherever they cover regions which are at risk of being marginalised in economic terms
EGTC will be legally allowed to manage and implement OPs, not least as a Managing Authority (MA) of a cooperation OP
Integrated Territorial Investments with the possibility to combine actions financed from different ETC strands

6. Challenges and additional territorial evidence
Lessons learned for Operational Programmes – TerrEvi draft final:
Programmes need many different sources – incomplete data sets, insufficient quality etc. are obstacles
ESPON is of varying degree interesting for programmes – depends on availability of material
Information in a wider European context can help programmes
Territorial evidence should be further harmonised

7. Challenges and additional territorial evidence
Lessons learned for Operational Programmes – TerrEvi draft final:
European perspective is the main benefit provided by ESPON
To understand internal differentiations within programme areas data sets should at least refer to NUT3 level
Watch out which sources have been used
Discuss with experts