Today with us Mr. Paolo Casalino, Director of the Puglia Office in Brussels. Can you tell us more about the activities of your office here?

We mainly do three things. We run an institutional activity of monitoring the EU decision-making process and legislative measures adopted by the Commission and relevant to the Region; we also work with the Committee of the Regions (our President is a Member) and we participate in EU thematic networks, useful to build consortia for EU projects and to make collective lobbying actions, which is one of our core activities (we tend not to lobby singularly). Furthermore, we are in connection with regional stakeholders like universities, research centers, clusters, in order to establish a joint approach to the action at EU level. Thirdly, we put great effort in promoting the knowledge on the EU direct funds, facilitating a comparative analysis between the previous and the present ones and finding what are the thematic priorities of other regions that can match those chosen by Puglia in its Smart specialization strategy.

Recently Puglia won a special Prize at the Open Days in Brussels, called Regio Star Award, with a project called “Diritti a scuola”. Can you tell me more about it?

Yes.  First of all this is a prize which goes only to very excellent projects. Quality, fastness and effectiveness of the EU money spending in Puglia are often recognized by the European Commission. Furthermore this prize has a special meaning for us because we are a “convergence/less developed region” and therefore traditionally considered not a place where excellence can come from. In this sense, the idea that comes out is that our region is changing for the best.

Which are the policy domains you follow more?

I follow, in particular, all that is connected to innovation. Then research, water resources, healthy-ageing, agriculture, transports, social innovation.  It also depends on the political priorities of the region, on the momentum in the EU debate and on the demands coming from our territorial stakeholders.

In terms of partnerships, your allies are more the southern Italian regions, or, for example,  the closest sea regions of other countries?

It really depends on our lobbying objective. We have different strategies on the basis of the goal to be achieved. Allies can be only Italian, or Italian and European, or outside the EU; it depends on the target we have and on the lobbying techniques we decide to put on the ground.

Your opinion about the EU and its future?

In several EU countries skepticism about the Union is very high. On the contrary, what I have noticed traveling abroad for job reasons is that in EU-candidate countries there is a different perception and they are really keen to join the EU and there is a huge enthusiasm about such a perspective. This means that there is still the hope and the need for a stronger and Europe to be built all together.

Damiano De Rosa 
Chief editor – NEU