A traditional European Week of Regions and Cities is taking place in Brussels on October 10-13. This is one of the key annual events of the regional scale in the European Union. During the event regions are granted the opportunity to demonstrate their potential, innovations, and creation of new working places, proving the importance of development of regional and local management.

 Around 6000 participants from all over the Europe are expected to take part in the Week of Regions, which implies holding more than 100 seminars, discussions, exhibitions and other thematic activities. Among the participants will be the members of the European Committee of the Regions, the MEPs, representatives of the European Commission , national, regional and local authorities, business community and media, experts on regional policy.

The event is being carried out under the auspices of the European Committee of the Regions and the EU Commissioner for Regional Policy.

This year slogan of the European Week of Regions and Cities is “Regions and cities for sustainable and inclusive growth”. The main topics will be

-      Progressing and stable economic growth. The topic will put an emphasis on the benchmark for success  of regions and cities in attraction of new investments;

-      Inclusive economic growth. The topic will let representatives of regions and cities to share their experience in solving refugee problem, also using the EU funds;

Simplification of establishment process of  the EU structural and investment funds (ESI Funds). Within the framework of the topic the best practices in urban planning, local community development and intergated investment programs will be examined.

On the 11 of October the European Committee of the Regions  with the participation of the Ukrainian deputies and representatives of regional authorities conducted a seminar “Eastern PartnershipTerritorial and Parliamentary Cooperation:   Advancing economic development, entrepreneurship ,research and innovations”.  The same day the Representative of Ukraine to the EU M. Tochytskyi  held a meeting with the President of the European Committee of the Regions M. Markkula.