Discours M.O.Novelli,
Urbameco May 15th, urbact conference.

The URBAMECO network allowed for the first time a sketch of european cooperation between cities and ERDF managing authorities and allowed to highlight certain number of stakes and challenges to be raised in the implementation of the next community policies :



- The revealing and the intensification of the couple region / town as engine of the development and the innovation and as relevant levels of strategic political piloting (cf. SDEC polycentriques regions, Poznan on 1999, cf. the reflections of the European green book on the territorial cohesion)
The necessity of strengthening the European integration through the cooperation between the cross-border regions by leaning on the network of cities (example of Euro-metropolis the joint of the region of which the French conglomeration - Geneva and Rhône-Alpes and geneva lake,
The axis Rhône-Alpes-Piémont and Lyon-Torino can be good examples. We can also register Rhône-Alpes in the cooperation of the western Mediterranean Sea (INTERREG 2C, European territorial Cooperation by leaning on city networks and theme of the migratory space

-The necessity of endowing cities and regions of a real system of representation within the European Union.
-(cf) The current French debate on the conclusions of the Committee Balladur (intensification of regions, future metropolises)

A priority consideration of the following themes within the framework of the sustainable development :
-The cycle of the water and its regulation (a major stake in development) in Europe and somewhere else in the world the housing energy efficiency,
-The fight against the discriminations and for the social and multicultural innovation : the consideration of the relations women-men (gender) in the construction of the policies, the consideration of minorities, the immigration implementation policies with the objectives of sustainable development
The fields of activities not delocalized creators of little qualified jobs : services connected to the everyday life, services linked to the town and country planning, the cultural services and leisure, services connected to the environment (EU 17 fields of employment 1994). All these activities participate in the locking up of the cycles inconveniently opened to the last century.


The stake in the increase of the European budget in the delta of 1 % of the GDP of the countries of the Euro zone. The European Union is too weakly redistributing to assure a large-scale social and territorial cohesion policy which calls the management of the multiple current crises.
The Rhone Alpes Region would be candidate in leading, with the SGAR (state of France), and the region of Gelderland and create one " European network of managing authorities " within the framework of URBACT II from the proposal of the Dutch Region to enrich the debates of the URBAMECO network next May 14th.