Nordrhein-Westfalen im nordwesteuropäischen Raum: Aufgaben und Probleme gemeinsamer Planung und Entwicklung

The policy of North-Rhine-Westphalia is aimed at an improvement of its economic structure. Its adaption to the requirements of a growing economy is designed to rejoin North-Rhine-Westphalia to the rapidly expanding economic areas of the Federal Republic and the European Communities. Its location, infrastructure, labour potential, and market situation give the country a number of excellent prerequisites that will, particularly in the Western parts of the country, improve when the frontiers lose their separat­ ing character. That requires more than the mere removal of customs barriers. On account of the interdependence of economic processes the basic objectives must be harmonized and their step-by-step realisation must be carried out as evenly as possible. Therefore the European Communities must strive for a farther­ reaching integration of their economic aims. As far as the physical planning and traffic policies are concerned, we are lucky to agree with our Western neighbours in the fundamental objectives. However, the concrete cooperation in the field of planning has reached different phases. In the border area between Germany and the Netherlands it has progressed the best. Being a part of the work of the German-Dutch Commission of physical planning it will, in the long run, certainly lead to a significant improvement of cooperation. The cooperation with our Belgian neighbour, however, requires very strong impulses which is a matter of utmost concern to us. What is alarming is the state of cooperation in the practical regional policy; that applies in particular to subsidizing the settlement of industry.