Integrated Territorial Investments as an effective tool of economic growth - this was the main theme of the international conference, which was held at the end of October in Pilsen (Czech Republic). Representatives of the European Commission, state and municipality administration of the Czech Republic as well as ITI experts participated to the conference. The conference aimed to introduce ITI as a functional and effective instrument of Cohesion policy that is used in the Czech Republic and across the entire EU. The first part of the conference dealt with a political dimension of benefits resulting from the implementation of investment incentive projects in the Czech Republic focusing on the application of ITI tool on the regional level.
The conference also introduced ITI as a functional tool both in the Czech Republic and across the EU, and its implementation in the EU and Czech Republic in order to show its economic benefits for sustainable urban development. Finally, the conference reviewed specific experiences and projects from the Czech Republic and EU and introduced visions of particular holders for the following programme period.
The goal of the conference was to unify opinions of representatives on various levels – EU, national and also regional, pertaining to the most effective fulfilment of policy goals as determined for the programme period 2021 – 2027. ITI is a prominent tool of the regional policy used as an implementation mechanism for drawing from EU structural funds and (at the same time) an important tool that facilitates meeting a thematic concentration of EU policy.
ITI is also one of the tools on which EURE is concentrated. The main improvement expected to reach with the support of EURE is to make easier to run territorial strategies and promote more local form of policymaking for urban issues.
The main conclusion of the conference has been the need to:
- focus on creating integrated solutions within the purview of integrated strategies;
- use good practice from other EU countries;
- create functional partnerships in the ITI area with an emphasis on strategic planning in case of solving concrete problems of metropolitan areas;
- simplify administration and using of funding within the ITI tool;
- ground the key factors of ITI tool to the legislation.
