CoRAI - Committee of the Regions - Automotive Intergroup

CoRAI Automotive Intergroup

is an interregional group of members and alternate members of the European Committee of the Regions providing opportunities to discuss, exchange views and increase expertise on the "Future of the Automotive Industry" in order to promote cooperation between local and regional authorities.

CoRAI  is a platform for informal discussion bringing together members from different parties, committees and member states being interested in future developments of the automotive sector. It was set up and is working successfully since 2009.

The objectives of the interregional group are the following ones:

The Future of the Automotive Industry interregional group of the European Committee of the Regions was created in April 2009. The president of the group is Christopher Drexler (AT/EPP). The group currently has 25 full members from 10 Member States: Austria, Germany, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain.

Objectives

The Committee of the Regions' Future of the Automotive Industry interregional group (CoRAI) brings together CoR members from automotive regions with industry, clusters, the EU Institutions experts. The European automotive ecosystem represents 1.8 million companies, at least 16 million people work in the sector. Regions with automotive industry and its suppliers are a fundamental part of this automotive ecosystem in Europe. They play a central role in the transformation that the automotive industry is experiencing due to the digitalisation and greening of transport.

The objectives are:

• To facilitate the exchange of views and best practices on a just, fair and successful transformation of regions with automotive industry and its suppliers.
  
  
• To exchange experiences among the territories about different issues concerning the automotive sector and the future of mobility (e.g. automated driving, sustainable transport fuels, skills, industrial policy, infrastructure, development of regions with automotive or supply industries);
  
  
• To establish contacts, and exchange views and best practices with the European Institutions and other stakeholders;
  
  
• To foster contacts among automotive and mobility clusters, regions and cities.

Group meetings and activities

Working structure - the CoRAI Focus Group

In order to facilitate direct contacts, manage CoRAI activities and enable members to choose their individual level of involvement for themselves, this intergroup has established a support team, the so-called "CoRAI Focus Group". When joining, intergroup members are requested to nominate a contact person for this support team of mainly Brussels-based experts. The intergroup president has appointed a secretary-general to organise the intergroup activities in close cooperation with the CoRAI Focus Group.

CoRAI meetings are open to automotive regions and stakeholders. Invitations are published on the CoRAI website. Virtual meetings have been recorded and are published on the website established by the CoRAI president. Meeting documents and key messages chosen by the speakers themselves are also available on the website:  www.europa.steiermark.at/automotive