Council Conclusions on the Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the implementation of EU macro-regional strategies

On 16 September 2025, the Council of the European Union formally adopted its Conclusions on the Fifth Report on the Implementation of EU Macro-Regional Strategies (MRS), presented by the European Commission earlier this year.

These Conclusions reaffirm the vital role of the four EU macro-regional strategies in strengthening regional cooperation, resilience, and integration across Europe.

Key Outcomes

• Acknowledgement of the value of MRS: The Conclusions recognise the role of macro-regional strategies in enhancing cooperation, trust, preparedness, and resilience, particularly in response to geopolitical and environmental challenges.
• Support for enlargement and neighbourhood cooperation: The Council highlighted the importance of MRS as a platform for candidate and neighbouring countries to work on an equal footing with EU Member States. This contributes to aligning national legislation with EU acquis, building administrative capacity, and advancing the enlargement process.
• Stronger focus on competitiveness and resilience: The Conclusions call for greater emphasis on economic competitiveness, just energy transition, resilience, security, and demographic change.
• Reinforced role in the green, digital, and fair transitions: MRS are encouraged to continue contributing to Europe’s green and digital agendas while ensuring social fairness and quality of life.
• Governance and stakeholder engagement: The Council underlined the importance of strengthening governance structures, ensuring the active participation of all stakeholders and promoting effective decision-making.
• Embedding: The Conclusions welcomed the increasing integration of MRS priorities into EU funding programmes, particularly Interreg, and encouraged continuing to facilitate this embedding process throughout the whole funding period.
• Communication and visibility: The need to reinforce communication efforts and to raise the visibility of the strategies’ achievements was strongly emphasised.

The full document is available here.