First meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the PA 2014-2020

16/11/2015

The first meeting of the Monitoring Committee for the PA 2014-2020 was held on the 16th of November at the Divani Caravel hotel. Alexis Charitsis, Deputy Minister of Economy, Development and Tourism, responsible for PA issues, chaired the meeting. In his opening speech the Deputy Minister presented what had already been done so as to avoid loss of resources from the programmes concerning the 2007-2013 period and to smoothly launch the programmes for the 2014-2020 period, whose main priorities he presented. Charlina Vitcheva, Director, DG Regio at the European Commission also addressed the meeting.

The Regional Heads, representatives of Ministries, first tier local authorities and social partners also participated as members in the Committee meeting. There was a fruitful discussion and proposals were made. Their assessment will contribute to the programmes of the 2014-2020 period being more effectively carried out.

In the margins of the meeting, Mr. Charitsis and Ms. Vitcheva gave a Press conference. The Deputy Minister underscored that the event "constituted an excellent opportunity for the stakeholders in the management and implementation of the PA programmes of the new programming period to meet to exchange ideas, views and observations on the entirety of the programmes and especially at a time when the programmes of the new period are only just commencing."

He added that the new development priorities were outlined in the pre-announcement of programmes recently publicized. Ms. Vitcheva presented the initiatives of the European Commission to ensure liquidity, assuring that "beneficiaries can finally make headway and implement their programmes smoothly”. She appeared optimistic saying that "we are on the correct path and we are now closer to the point where citizens are those who can identify the best development measures."

During both the Monitoring Committee meeting and the Press Conference, special reference was made to the refugee issue and the sustained flows from regions in conflict towards the EU, after the tragic events of November 13th in Paris. The Deputy Minister noted that in order to tackle the problem we must all show solidarity, with active policies that will confirm the traditional democratic values of the EU.  Finally he stated that "this urgent, pressing challenge of historic proportions, requires political, operational, as well as financing support of those countries, such as Greece, that shoulder the greater part of the burden and are required to implement programmes to create reception, social inclusion and cohesion infrastructure, not exclusively for themselves, but for the whole of Europe."