eublues

http://www.nwra.gov.uk/newsletter/?p...&article_id=56

Health warning - this is a sickening insight into how the North West Regional Assembly (and presumably all the others) seeks to subvert the British state in favour of "all things European".


Here's a sample:


WELCOME

Welcome to the third edition of Vista, our monthly themed newsletters, and the first edition focused on Europe and all activities European!

We are in a period of change in the region regarding some areas of our European agenda. The Structural Funds period 2000-06 is drawing to a close and we are in the process of deciding what the priorities will be for the next round (2007-13). Many people across the region are working to put together our Operational Programme outlining how the funds for the North West, and special allocation for Merseyside, should be spent. You can read more here about what is happening...

At the same time we are busy building relationships with other regions of the EU who share our goals and values. The North West has a long experience of working with other regions through Interreg programmes and now is the time to develop these networks in order to get maximum benefit from both the Structural Funds and also to help us in applying for other EU funds.

We have also had a few significant achievements over recent months - the visit of the European Commissioner for Regional Policy back in July was an enormous success. We are continually hearing remarks about how much the Commissioner enjoyed the visit and how she mentions many examples of Merseyside in her speeches. One of the things that caught her eye was the innovative way that the Objective 1 programme had of accrediting the EU on the sites. Signs saying "Thank EU" and "We couldn't have done it without EU" were much appreciated!

The visit of our newly established North West European Partnership to Brussels in June also went extremely well. The Partnership had a chance to meet with Commission officials and politicians particularly around issues which are ‘not the structural funds'. High on the agenda therefore was research and innovation, energy, social inclusion programmes and support for small and medium-sized businesses.

In the next few weeks the 2006 Committee of the Regions Open Days will take place in Brussels and the North West Brussels Office has been busy preparing for its involvement in a number of seminars and bringing speakers from the region to share best practice with other regions. We provide information on what is going to happen in the newsletter - but hope that the next European edition will give feedback on what the outcomes of the event.

Until then happy reading from the European Team and don't hesitate to contact us if you would like more information on anything mentioned in "Vista Europe".

Margaret Reid - margaret.reid@nwra.gov.uk

Suzy Sumner - suzy.sumner@northwesthouse-brussels.org

Kathryn Griffiths - kathryn.griffiths@northwesthouse-brussels.org