25. Encourages the Commission to complement the criteria and to strengthen the procedures for assessment of the quality of the projects financed, in order to increase the quality of aid and to further decrease the number of non-performing projects; stresses that the impact of the aid expenditure is of paramount importance to Parliament;

25. Encourages the Commission to complement the criteria and to strengthen the procedures for assessment of the quality of the projects financed, in order to increase the quality of aid and to further decrease the number of non-performing projects; stresses that the impact of the aid expenditure is of paramount importance to Parliament;

Recommends that the Commission re-analyse the possibilities of implementing the pilot project initiated by the European Parliament entitled ‘Erasmus for elected local and regional representatives’ and, with a view to raising the standard of proposed projects and meet the objective of efficiency, calls on the Commission to implement, under the ERDF operational technical assistance budget line, a training and mobility scheme for local and regional actors involved in running cohesion policy programmes together with the partners specialised in implementing the concepts of integrated approach and multilevel governance; asks the Commission, t ...[+++]herefore, to allocate funding for these initiatives effectively and to reinforce networking with regional and local authorities, including through the Committee of the Regions;

In contrast, the subsequent provisions make it clear that the objectives and purpose of the Joint Undertaking are to ensure the coordinated management of the funds assigned to the SESAR project during the implementation phase (recital (12)), to manage a public research programme of European interest (recital (13)), to enable progress to be made in the development of air traffic control technologies (recital (15)) and to organise and coordinate the SESAR project by combining public and private sector funding and using external technical resources, provided by its members, and in particular Eurocontrol’s experience (recital (16), which is ...[+++]described as the Joint Undertaking's "main task".

Lieutenant-General Lloyd Campbell, Commander of Air Command and Chief of the Air Staff noted that while “we had managed to preserve, and in fact even enhance, the capability and the quality of many of the forces that we have, we should not confuse that with depth or sustainability, because those are quite different things.

As commander of the command and as the former commander of the air division, which you had an opportunity to visit, I absolutely share the pride and the belief that the young men and women and not so young men and women that serve this nation of ours in uniform are doing a superb job.