Press Release: European Commission adopts the first interim report on economic and social cohesion

Michel Barnier, European Commissioner responsible for regional policy presented to the European Commission on 30 January 2002, the first interim report on economic and social cohesion in Europe. This is the reuslt of a commitment entered into by the Commission to make regular reports to the Council on the state of cohesion in Europe. It updates the findings of the second report on economic and social cohesion adopted in January 2001and proposes a series of debats about the future of this policy in an enlarged Union. For the first time, the European Commission presented an analysis of the disparities in a Union of 25 members, with the ten applicant countries who, according to the Laeken European Council will be ready to join by 2004 if the present rate of enlargement is maintained.