ANCONA – Acquaroli: “We have great potential and we are able to offer a great contribution, but we need a system project and we need to reduce the distance between the European institutions and the territories, all of us feeling part of a common challenge”.
Charbit: “We are here to help regional actors to identify indicators, tools, to guide their public policies, like a compass, to rethink the policy of regional attractiveness in this global evolution”.
Second and final day of the OECD mission in the Marche. Two days dedicated to discussing the main challenges and opportunities for the attractiveness and internationalization of regional territories, referring to in particular to the recent crises and evolutions of the global context. This morning the central theme of the meeting was tourism, which is delegated to the president Francesco Acquaroli who opened the meeting.
“This is a very important occasion – said Acquaroli – which allows us to deal with an international body and allows us to take stock of the situation. The last few years have been conditioned by the health crisis and now by the consequences of the war in Ukraine, with all the negative repercussions that derive from it in the national and, in turn, regional systems. The Marches want to return to being more and more competitive and attractive and to do so a system project is needed “.
“I am convinced – continued Acquaroli – that one of the challenges of the European Union must precisely be that of overcoming centralism and looking at what may seem to be peripheries. It is here, in these territories, like ours, that a great competitive force of industry, manufacturing, of the agri-food chain is born, with excellences recognized today worldwide, which are associated with places of art, culture and spiritualities that have absolutely nothing to envy to much more famous and popular destinations. What we need is recognition from the European institutions, because it is clear what difficulties small-scale structures face in keeping up with the times, starting with bureaucracy. To be attractive, we need to have access to all the financial, political, cultural, but also and above all administrative opportunities of the EU. Small territories must be understood and supported, in order to give new concrete and truly usable possibilities to young people, to tourism and manufacturing companies, reducing the distance that exists between institutions and territories and feeling ourselves all part of a common challenge. Only in this way can we all feel more European, more involved and also convinced supporters of common policies ”.
This is the message that President Acquaroli sends to the OECD and indirectly to the European institutions.
“We are working very hard on this project linked to attractiveness – explained Claire Charbit, head of delegation and manager of the Regional Attractiveness and Integration of Migrants Unit at the OECD Center for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities – and we are proud to do it with the Marche, as well as with Liguria, Campania and Sicily. On the one hand, all these regions share common problems, such as the need to coordinate better, on the other hand there are very different resources. We realized that there is a lot of industrial potential in the Marche region, including that of rural areas or the hinterland. There is also a great tourist potential, which is somewhat ignored, as if the Marche were on the outskirts of areas that are more visible internationally. This is true for both tourism and industrial development. Therefore, today the evolution of globalization can assign a place to regions such as the Marche and we are here to help regional actors to identify indicators, tools, to guide their public policies, like a compass, to rethink the policy of regional attractiveness. in this global evolution. We strongly believe in all of this “.