Brussels – While there is agreement and a united front against budget cuts, the European Commission and the European Committee of the Regions (COR) continue to hold differing views on the direction of cohesion policy. The press conference marking the start of the European Regions Week held by the Vice-President of the EU executive, Raffaele Fitto, and the President of the CoR, Kata Tüttő, highlights all the limitations of today’s Europe, characterised by differing visions and institutions that are disconnected from one another.
On the one hand, the Committee of the Regions and Tüttő – “we reject the narrative of an old and outdated cohesion policy” – on the other, an EU executive that continues to argue for the need to “align cohesion policy with our new priorities and adapt the role of the regions to the new context” created by the war in Ukraine and international stability issues, as Fitto points out.
Although Tüttő repeatedly spoke of “good cooperation” with the Commission on cohesion across all fronts (strategies, the right to housing, islands, outermost regions, border regions), the European Union is operating in a disorganised, confused and cordially conflictual manner, and the Fitto-Tüttő duo merely confirms this. “Today we are in a new context,” insists the Commission’s Executive Vice-President. “Now cohesion is disconnected from the rest,” replies the President of the Committee of the Regions, referring to a further criticism of the system of the multiannual financial framework (MFF 2028–2034), which sees resources for agriculture and the regions merged into a single financial envelope, no longer managed at the local level but centralised.
In what appears more like a dialogue of the deaf than a constructive effort to find genuinely shared solutions, the only point of convergence is the defence of resources. The Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU has put forward a proposal marked by significant cuts to the European Commission’s budget, which, for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and cohesion policies combined, entails further reductions totalling 27.8 billion euros. “Cutting cohesion means cutting investment in competitiveness”, thunders the President of the Committee of the Regions. The Commission can do little more, given that the Council and Parliament must decide on the budget, but, as Fitto assures, “we are continuing to work constructively to move the negotiations forward.”
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
