Development issues and objective 1 structural measures in Greece. Report

The regional policy committee has adopted an own initiative report by Konstadinos KLIRONOMOS) supporting structural aid in Greece. The Committee endorsed the priority areas for the Community Support Framework, ie. to develop human resources, reduce regional inequalities and to improve basic infrastructure. However, the committee felt that programmes were only slowly coming on stream and that implementation should be speeded up. It is calling on the Commission and the Greek Government to make the necessary changes in the institutional framework to allow this to happen. The committee also took the view that Greece needs considerably greater investment funds than current Community funding in order to raise Greek productivity and per capita income to the EU average. It therefore underlined the importance of encouraging private investment sector and promoting major projects by self-financing. �