 Colleagues, let us all take our seats. I know we are all enthusiastic about meeting again. I know we're all enthusiastic about meeting back here in person, and I am certainly very happy to see you all. Well, not all, but most of our plenary is back here in person. So I warmly welcome all of you to this hybrid. Plenary session in person or connected remotely. It is a renewed real pleasure for me to meet some of you here today in person after all this while. In order to make this meeting successful and safe for all of us, I remind those of you who are present in the plenary premises to strictly apply the COVID safety measures as they are advised by our administration. Those present in the meeting rooms have to wear a mask covering their nose, mouth, and chin at all times. When speaking, you are allowed to take off your mask for the duration of your intervention. I would also like to thank members joining online for your participation today. Today, the health conditions in Brussels, Belgium, and most of the EU countries gradually improve as more and more people get vaccinated. For this European week of regions and cities, we have a record of more than 12,000 participants registered and for the plenary session, approximately 150 members that participate today in person with all the other members attending our plenary session remotely. Of course, we hope that the numbers of physical presence will continue to grow during our next plenaries and that soon we will be able to welcome everybody back in Brussels again. We will soon inform you about the organizational details for the plenary session in November and December. I would like to give the floor now to the Secretary General for one very practical item that I'm sure concerns all of you. Thank you very much, President, dear members. It is a logistical point concerning the COVID. Some of you received the notification from Belgium authorities while arriving to Belgium that you must go for the quarantine. We looked at it, our doctor was on it, and apparently this was a mistake. We clarified the situation. Yesterday, all of you received an information what to do, basically. You are a member of an international organization, and if you have a valid COVID passport, you can enter the meeting. You have the information in the email, and if you have any question, Pedro is here to help you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Secretary General. So let's start with our 146th plenary session. And we start with the adoption of our agenda. Our first point is the adoption. If there are no comments, the agenda is adopted. We will now proceed to the adoption of the minutes of the last, the 145th plenary session that was held on June 30th and 1st and 2nd of July. If there are no comments, the minutes are adopted. Dear colleagues, having said that, we will now start our first debate on the 2021 regional and local barometer. And let me start with this item by sharing the information that, unfortunately, the vice president of the European Commission, Mr. Maros Sefiovic, will not be able to attend our debate today because of an urgent personal matter. Let's start with our video. Dear colleagues, dear friends, we all know by now that the pandemic has affected each and every one of us, every one of our citizens. Millions of lives have been lost. Our economies and borders have been closed. The innovative capacity of industry has been tested. The incredibly brave workers in our health care, emergency, and social services have been stretched. During this time, Europe has stayed strong and united. And if there is one lesson from this crisis, it is that the essence of Europe, its strength, solidarity, and the delivery of services for its citizens, happens in its regions, cities, and villages. This is why I am pleased to present today our 2021 Regional and Local Barometer, an evidence-based political initiative that takes the pulse of our regions, our cities, and our villages. Our objective is very clear to demand to the European Commission as the EU's executive to improve citizens' lives in the places where they live. By doing so, it ensures that the subsidiarity principle enshrined in the EU treaties guides us ensuring that all levels of government, EU, national, regional, and local act together at the level closest to the citizens. Dear colleagues, every day, on the ground, we provide quality public services. And we continue to do so despite increasing costs and decreasing incomes. Our Barometer this year tells us that in 2020, Europe's regional and local authorities increased expenditure by more than 125 billion euros. And so their revenues fall by 55 billion euros. This is what we call the Caesar's Effect. And this translates into a gap of about 180 billion euros. For instance, Dutch municipalities lost up to 350 million euros from parking fees alone during the pandemic. Local authorities in Cyprus lost 25% of their revenues, one fourth. In Bulgaria, the loss is over 15%, and in Italy, almost 10. Cities such as Torre Vedras in Portugal will no longer be able to provide meals for students. The Czech city of Gladno made no continue to deliver medicines and food to the elderly. The money, the money for these and for many other services like this, come from regional and local budgets, but also from national and EU budgets. So all three levels of government must work together for the recovery by ensuring that every single euro of taxpayers' money is invested where it is more needed. This shows why the role of regional and local authorities in the planning and in the implementation of the resilience and the recovery plans is indispensable. And this should be heard loud and clear by all the national governments of our member states. My point, dear colleagues, is clear. COVID poverty is a reality for more and more people around Europe. Our response must be effective. Budgetary stability of regional and local authorities must be restored the soonest possible. Fiscal autonomy must be broadened so that we can invest in the specific needs of people and not in a top-down manner. Dear friends, our barometer also shows the major regional disparities that we have in health. Cities may provide more health care, but rural regions so lower rates of deaths during the pandemic. So for now and for future crisis, we must reassess the health competencies all across the European Union. And let me be clear. Conceiving a health union only between Brussels and the 27 member states will never work and we will never support it. Because regional and local authorities hold legal responsibilities on health in all of 27 EU member states. And the same applies to Green Deal. The UN has said that we now have five times the number of weather-related disasters that we had in 1970. And they are seven times more costly for our economies. We all saw the summer fires and the floods that tragically hit so many communities around Europe. As 70% of EU citizens live in urban areas, cities are the biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions. So dear colleagues, since we, the cities and regions of Europe, deliver 70% of climate change reduction measures and up to 90% of adaptation measures, please join me in our call to the national governments and to the executive vice president Timmermans, as the EU's key negotiator, to ensure that the regional and the local dimension is included in the Glasgow COP26 conclusions. Dear colleagues, the pandemic, however, exposed another dramatic divide, digital cohesion. Currently, only Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands are actively curbing the urban rural digital divide. As the total coverage of EU households with high internet capacity is 44% in urban areas and only 20% in rural areas. So we need to act faster and we need to act now. With at least 20% of the funds under the EU recovery and resilience facility for digital transition, a strong regional and local dimension is crucial. Today, more than ever. Now, to respond to all these health, green, and digital challenges, we welcome the European Commission's EU missions to break silos and work together on adapting to climate change, smart cities, oceans, soil health and food, cancer, and other areas. We are also ready to develop a regional resilience platform that will support people to strengthen regional and local resilience against future natural disaster, climate change, and of course, health crisis. Dear colleagues, one final remark. This about our European democracy and the future of our union. Our barometer shows that 65% of leaders from regions, cities, and villages all across Europe feel that they do not have enough influence in the European Union. And 86% think that strengthening subnational government in EU decision making would improve dramatically democracy in the European Union. Both figures tell us a real story. The story of a democracy that can work only in partnership, unity, and cohesion. The story of our people who want the European Union that delivers results at the level closest to the citizens. Otherwise, more and more people will start questioning its very existence. This is why the EU can no longer remain a top-down, territorially blind project, as we unfortunately saw in the recent State of the Union by the European Commission. Only through a bottom-up and values-based approach can Europe rebuild today's citizens' trust. Dear colleagues, despite its imperfections, the European Union is and will remain our house and our only solution to the problems we have. But its functioning must be improved. So let's listen to our people and discuss with them how to transform our European House of Democracy into a real European House of Democracy. With the EU being the protective roof, the member states, the strong walls, and the regions, cities, and villages, its strong foundations. We can do this. And we will do this together, because this is the only way to improve our people's lives. This is the only way to respond to all this major crisis and problems that we face in Europe today. And this is the only way, if we want, to bring Europe closer to its citizens. We, the European Committee of Regions, regionally and locally elected politicians all across Europe, are here, present, and willing to do the job. Thank you very much. Dear President, dear members, allow me to apologize for not being with you in person today. The Committee of the Regions continues to play a key role in the work of the European Union. More than ever, Europe's local, city, and regional authorities need to have their voices heard at the highest levels. And I thank you for all your hard work. I will speak today on three topics. First, I want to thank you for your annual regional and local barometer. This evidence-based report is of a great importance to the European Commission, in particular, by shedding light on regional divergencies, the Caesar effect in financing, and the levels of trust in different levels of government. As the European Union continues to emerge from the depth of the COVID-19 crisis, it is encouraging to see the report focused on recovery and creating a further and more resilient Europe. Here, I would like to stress the value that the Commission attaches to the role played by Regions, cities, and other local authorities in keeping people safe during the pandemic. Then I also set to be the key to our overall economic recovery, not least through the implementation of the national recovery plans at the local level. For example, the local perspective can provide much-edited value when it comes to financing projects linked to the twin green and digital transitions. At least half of all next-generation EU funding will go to those two areas. It is also important to reflect on how the pandemic has impacted different sectors of the European economy at the regional level. To that end, this year's barometer also included a recommendation for a revision of the European Economic Governance Framework to reflect the post-COVID-19 reality. This was confirmed by President von der Leyen in her State of the Union address last month. As regards the Conference on Future of Europe, it is clear that members of this committee can reach Europeans with whom it would be otherwise difficult to engage. This is very much something we want to make full use of. Ultimately, we will draw on all our experiences with this collaborative exercise for the future. Second, we are now finalizing the 2022 Commission Work Program, and I want to thank the committee, as always, for its useful input which has helped inform our work. As President von der Leyen highlighted, there are a number of critical priorities where the Commission will focus its efforts over the next year. These include continuing the EU's vaccination efforts at home and abroad. Further concrete action under the European Green Deal, leading the digital transformation to create jobs and drive competitiveness. Ensuring technical excellence and security of supply does helping euro build its open strategic autonomy. And focus on a more modern, more competitive and fairer economy which entails continued implementation of the European pillar of social rights. Making 2022 the European year of youth with a new ALMA program to help young people who are not in any employment educational training to find temporary work experience in another member states. And stepping up our cooperation on security and defense and deepening EU's partnership with the closers' allies. And finally, robustly defending European values and fundamental freedoms, including the rule of law. Please rest assured that we will take into account the local and regional dimensions in this process. And third, we must also think in the longer term. The 2021 Strategic Four Sides Report, our second annual report of this kind, focused on the geopolitical dimension of resilience and what it means to be resilient in an increasingly multipolar and contested global order. Its findings have very practical implications for the EU's regions. The report provided a multidisciplinary and long term view of what matters for Europe's open strategic autonomy. Its first part looked at key structural mega trends which will have a major impact on the EU on its path towards 2050. Namely, climate change, digital, democracy and values, and shifts in the global order and demography. These mega trends will affect every corner of Europe, albeit to different extents. The report that went on to identify scenarios where the EU should act to enhance its open strategic autonomy and global leadership, giving us the best possible chance of achieving our longer term policy objectives. These areas include, for example, promoting training and education policies and safeguarding resilient and sustainable food systems. Such examples which are also highlighted in the committee's annual bottom and regional agendas. Next year's Strategic Four Sides Report will focus on establishing a better understanding between the green and digital transitions. This means asking ourselves how they can mutually reinforce each other, including through the use of emerging technologies. It is vital that the local and regional perspective is reflected in the four side process. Here the European strategy and policy analysis system will be important. We welcome the active role your committee plays in ESPAS, including, of course, the valuable presence of Marko Marcula at the conference in November. Your expertise is a crucial complement to the work done at the level of the commission and the other institutions. That includes the use for comments and contributions you made on our resilience dashboards. In particular, you proposed enhancing the regional dimension of resilience in these dashboards. We look forward to working with you to identify additional good indicators for this purpose. Finally, as part of our efforts to strengthen the EU strategic four side capabilities, we are currently finalizing the better regulation guidelines and toolbox to ensure that key policy initiatives are informed by four side. Let me finish by thanking you again for the annual barometer and essential part of our fruitful cooperation together. Thank you for listening and I look forward to continue our fruitful discussions in person and very soon. Thank you. Thank you very much. We will now open the debate with our members. We will start with Michael Murphy from the EPP. Thank you, Mr. President. Can I first of all welcome your opening speech, a speech that clearly set out the impact and particular the impact on revenue and revenue raising structures of local authorities that challenges, but more importantly, the opportunities and it's crucial that local and regional authorities are at the heart of realizing those opportunities. And can I make one additional point as well, the importance of digital cohesion being a key additional dimension to cohesion. I just want to make two points in my role as econ chair as well, just on economic recovery. The barometer is very, very clear. The inadequate involvement of local and regional authorities in the submission phase of the recovery and resilience plans, the preparation phase. To date, this has just been a box-taking exercise. I hope that we can correct these sharp comings as we move to the implementation phase. Failure to involve local and regional authorities in the implementation phase will be detrimental to the recovery. I want to make a point on EU-UK relations from ports to port authorities to local enterprise offices, from the educational sector and SMEs, us locally and regional elected leaders, see the impacts of Brexit at the local level. This may not be a big ticket or high politics items, but they are what citizens feel on a day-to-day level. As you know, last night at the Bureau, I was delighted to be formally appointed on the forthcoming opinion strengthening EU-UK relationships at the sub-national level and remedying the territorial impacts of the UK's withdrawal from the EU. I will explore this EU-UK relationship at the sub-national level. In this regard, I have a question for the team of Mr. Shevkovich. I ask whether the commission can come forward with a proposal for structured dialogue with local and regional authorities of the EU-UK joint partnership council meetings, thus fulfilling the gap of a permanent structure of exchange between local and regional authorities and the governance of the EU-UK agreement. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. The floor now to Marku Markula from the... Dear colleagues at the speeches by our president, Tapos Tolos Citigostas and the Vice President, Maros Shevkovich, they showed clearly that to ensure the EU's future as a sustainable continent and to be able to reach the EU's ambitious targets can only be reached by well-focused activities at the level of cities and villages, together with industry, all communities of practice and citizens. The future of cities and cities, as I call them, can and will be digitalized cities based on open, innovative collaboration and the competitive, sustainable growth businesses. New European innovative instruments are the cornerstones to accelerate this positive transition. We can really say that Green Deal is going local. New Bauhaus, European Digital Innovation Hubs, Aira Hubs, they all are the new instruments to be used together with smart specialization strategies. They together with using cohesion and resilience and recovery funds, wisely and attracting, mobilizing extensive private investments are the instruments provided by the EU. I especially stress the importance of the new European missions. All those five missions, they play a crucial role on this transformation, especially the Mission Climate Neutral and Smart Cities, without forgetting the other missions. We, the COR and the COR members, we need to take a strong role in implementing the missions. The next years are our opportunity to cooperate, to co-create, to co-invent the welfare future for all European citizens. Thank you. Thank you. The floor now to Karl Heinz Lambertz, please, from the PS Group. Dear President, thank you very much and congratulations on your speech. We cannot hear you, President. Do you hear me now? Can you hear me? There's a problem with your sound. Until we fix this, Andreas Kondilis, please, from the Renew Europe Group. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Now that the crisis is over, if someone asks us, if we are a threat to the future and the future, I think that most of us, if not all of us, will say that we are a threat and that we are a threat because no one is alone, because we are all together. If we were not like that, if we were all alone, either a small country or a small region, or a small country, we wouldn't be the same. As you know, Greece comes from a second crisis, the crisis we had during the summer with the affected countries all over the country, and we successfully faced it because we had help from our European friends, whom we thank from here, and we were able to face this crisis and the health care of the fires because it was in the first line of the effort and self-control, the first and the second step, the delivery and the delivery. We want, as we were in the first line of the effort to face this crisis, by spending many times our typical activities and taking initiatives, we want to give us the opportunity to be in the first line and to face the challenges. That is, to have participation in the lack of decisions and the positive role, and the common sense, typical and essential. And the means, the immediate access to the means. So, we have these tools, the measures and the procedures, the procedure for the government to be able to face the big challenge that is in front of us for the need. Most of Europe and most of the procedure for the government was the approach to face the crisis. And most of Europe and most of the government we ask and we suggest that it is and it seems that this measure shows that it should be the approach for the success of the need. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Marche. The floor now to Mr. Marsilio from the ECR, please. Thank you, President. Most of the European countries, especially Italy, have immediately... And the problem with your sound, Mr. Marsilio. Why not? Can we try, Mr. Lambert from the PES Group, please? Do you hear me now? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can I ask the administration to look at the problem because it might be a problem of the room here? Okay. Let's move to Mr. McCarthy from the EA Group, please. Thank you very much, Mr. Guelga. I would like to thank you, Mr. Lodder, for the opportunity to meet with Europe. I would like to ask you again, Mr. Lodder and the Commission, if you would like to talk a little bit about the problem of the real-time situation and the region that has created policy in Europe. So, I would like to thank the European region for this. I would like to thank the European Commission for the opportunity to meet with Europe. I would like to thank the European Commission on over 21 versions of Minecraft distribution. I would like to ask the European Commission for the opportunity to meet with Europe, for all I know that the European Commission makes the ultimate sense of the world. All of a sudden, the European Commission national capitals. We believe direct access of EU funds to local government should be improved. We demand that active subsidiarity become a cornerstone of EU policy, not just thinking about it. And there have been improvements with the introduction of a subsidiarity grid. But I think we can go further. Regions and cities need to be systematically involved in definitions of policies and implementing recovery measures. By involving local and regional authorities, we can ensure that the cost of the Green Deal, for example, but not severely penalized territories with natural and geographic constraints and affecting the most vulnerable of our citizens. We need to make sure that confidence in the future of Europe brings the citizen closer to the EU in a practical sense. And it's not just a pure communication show. If you empower the regions, Mr. President, the EU will be a success. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. McCarthy. The floor now to Mr. Voss from the Greens, please. Yes, Mr. President, thank you very much for your introduction. I think you really did a great job. What is the meaning of the barometer for us? And the barometer is a solid component of the decision of the region and makes a very, very important contribution to our contentious work in the number of facts to consider. And this year's barometer is basically drawn mainly by how the pandemic has affected the regions and the communities, but also how it has affected the affected measures. And we can really draw the conclusion that we have to make the territorial dimension significantly stronger, that it has to be more integrated, and that the situation must be exactly looked at. And that is why we are very much in my country, but in many countries, the national action plans were made by the government, the national government, but the regions and the communities were not sufficiently integrated and that basically continued with the 5 billion euro Brexit fund, which is basically connected to the national household when I see it with us. We are very concerned that the important goal, namely the implementation of the Green Deals and especially the 37 percent for climate protection, can be missed. We have to, and I think you have to do that again and again, better look at the digitalization in the rural areas. But if I read the barometer correctly, then it is also very clear that we have resilient communities in rural areas. Therefore, we will definitely have to look at the supply chains, the issue of supply chains, the regional economic chains more closely. Thank you very much. The floor now to our Vice President, Mr. Cordeiro. Thank you very much, Mr. President Tsitsikostas, Mr. Collec. I believe that the presentation of this report, namely the one that constituted the intervention of our President, signifies its importance in considering the level of the regions and the level of the cities, at the level of local authorities, that which is also a vision of the State of the Union. And this State of the Union, in the context in which this report is presented, signifies the true abode, the true terror that was for local and regional authorities and for our communities, the situation and the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why, in what is presented as one of the main aspects of the risks of this pandemic, the cause of the cohesion, the fomentation of increasing disparities between people, between citizens, but also between authorities, this barometer is an extremely important instrument. In fact, this barometer cannot be just a portrait of the past. It must be an instrument of the future. An instrument of the construction of the future. And that is why, at this moment, it intends to signify, based on these data, the importance that, therefore, cohesion in Europe has. Cohesion not only economic, but social cohesion. These are the moments in which the capacity of the Union is proof of being a cohesion fomentator. And that is why dear friends and friends, this is a moment as good as any other, to signify the importance of embarking on this common project, with what it has of positive and with what it has of challenging. Make a clear sign that we cannot have a Europe only in what is good, but that we must also be prepared to arraign all the demands. And I repeat and reinforce all of them to face the challenges we face. This is, above all, an opportunity for all of us, for local and regional authorities, through this document, to help us to build a better future for our citizens and for our communities. Thank you very much, President. Thank you. I would like to try to give the floor to Mr. Lamberts. Let's try to see if the sound is on now. Mr. President, we cannot hear you. The floor to Mr. Kaiser from the PES Group, please. I give the floor to the administration to explain what's going on. Thank you, President. I'm so sorry. We are encountering a problem with the sound in the room. For the time being, we are not able to hear remote interventions. We are trying to fix it as soon as possible, and we will let you know immediately when it will be solved. Thank you. And our excuses. Okay. So I would suggest that the three speakers who have not spoken, as soon as we have the technicians fix this problem, they will be given the floor if, of course, they are available, which could happen in five or ten minutes, from what I understand.