Territorial pacts, local initiatives for employment and social inclusion, sustainable and inclusive community-led local development strategies in urban and rural areas and sustainable urban development strategies may be used and supported to involve more actively regional and local authorities, cities, social partners and non-governmental organisations throughout the preparation and implementation of operational programmes.

17. Stresses the role that local and regional authorities could play in achieving the Europe 2020 objectives of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; reiterates the importance of the partnership between central authorities and regional and local authorities in setting priorities and providing the necessary co-financing for the implementation of programmes as a prerequisite for achieving maximum effect with limited resources in seeking to achieve these objectives; highlights, in this context, the importance of the new instrument for community- ...[+++]led local development, which would allow action groups at local level to develop and implement local strategies for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth; calls on the Member States to provide for such opportunities as part of the ongoing programming process, so as to make use of local action groups’ great potential for innovation; emphasises the importance of local and regional authorities and, where applicable, the social partners and other relevant partners in the programming, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Structural Funds and the preparation of the partnership agreements, which could result in better linkages between EU, national, regional and local strategies;

The second subparagraph of this paragraph may not apply for the transition from the Leader Community Initiative to the Leader Axis of the new programming period where the integrated local development strategies, to be implemented by local action groups referred to in Article 62 of Regulation (EC) No 1698/2005 which are selected for the new programming period, are new and/or the same rural territory has not benefited from the Leader Community Initiative.

In the 1994-1999 programming period for structural operations, assistance earmarked for local development under state programmes amounted to 10% of overall Structural Fund resources and still accounted for less than 15% when calculated together with Community initiatives and innovative measures In its opinion on the report on the guidelines for programmes in the period 2000-2006 Parliament’s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs acknowledged the strategic importance of local schemes to development and emplo ...[+++]yment as instruments for exploiting local development potential and the human resources available, and called for at least a quarter of total assistance under the new plans and programmes for the 2000-2006 period to be set aside for these schemes, including the technical assistance required to set them up.

The Commission approved 12 operational programmes (the seven regional programmes and five multiregional programmes 'Local development', 'Research, technological development and advanced training', 'Public safety for the development of the Mezzogiorno', 'Schools' and 'Fisheries') during 2000.

3. Is convinced that local development and employment initiatives are preconditions for lasting development which contribute not only to an improvement of the living environment in urban and rural areas but above all represent the proper framework for the creation of permanent employment opportunities and hence are an important first step in finding a solution for the EU's crisis areas which have degenerated into social exclusion and where local infrastructure has been destroyed. It is, therefore, incomprehensible that only 10% of the entire amount for the period 1994-1999 has been allocated to local ...[+++] development, while on the other hand, a large proportion of the large-scale projects promoted by considerable contributions from the Structural Funds have no more than short-term effects on employment and in some cases actually hamper or prevent the creation of jobs linked to the area; calls therefore on the Member States to introduce greater variety into their employment programmes and to include in them a chapter on local employment; calls on the Commission to support the Member States in such efforts and to insist, as being crucial to the efficient use of appropriations, on the proportion of Structural Fund allocations earmarked for local employment initiatives being raised;