{"id":419175,"date":"2025-02-19T16:20:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T15:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/02\/19\/costa-regioni-cittadini-e-politica\/"},"modified":"2025-02-19T16:56:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T15:56:13","slug":"costa-regions-can-connect-citizens-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/02\/19\/costa-regions-can-connect-citizens-and-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Costa: &#8220;Regions can connect citizens and politics&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"text-align: inherit; color: var(--body-color); font-family: var(--body-font-family); font-weight: var(--body-font-weight);\">Brussels &#8211; Not only Russia or\u00a0<\/span><a style=\"text-align: inherit; font-family: var(--body-font-family);\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/12\/30\/musk-us-interference-in-the-eu-and-the-limits-of-a-struggling-europe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elon Musk&#8217;s rage on his social media X<\/a><span style=\"text-align: inherit; color: var(--body-color); font-family: var(--body-font-family); font-weight: var(--body-font-weight);\">.<\/span>\u00a0The challenges are many, and as the European Union, &#8220;<span class=\"HwtZe\" lang=\"en\"><span class=\"jCAhz ChMk0b\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\">today we are being tested in unprecedented ways.&#8221;<\/span><\/span> The President of the European Council, <strong>Antonio Costa<\/strong>, is more than aware of this, and\u00a0he calls for accountability at\u00a0the <a href=\"https:\/\/cor.europa.eu\/en\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">European Committee of the Regions<\/a> meeting in plenary session. The EU is being tested &#8220;by<span class=\"jCAhz ChMk0b\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\">\u00a0geopolitics, by the economic situation, by a <strong>sense of disconnection between citizens and leadership<\/strong>,&#8221; Costa clarifies. On this last aspect,<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\">\u00a0he wants to insist: &#8220;<strong>We need local and regional governments<\/strong>;\u00a0we need the trust that can be built from the bottom up for our unity and cohesion.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Regions and their administrators are explicitly asked to work to heal that sense of mistrust and disconnect that undermines the integration project in its foundations. &#8220;<strong>The European<\/strong><span class=\"HwtZe\" lang=\"en\"><span class=\"jCAhz ChMk0b\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\"><strong>\u00a0Union is experiencing a decisive moment<\/strong>,&#8221; the president of the European Council warns. It is up to local authorities to make a difference to counter populism, euro-skepticism, and dissatisfaction. &#8220;Local and regional governments understand the needs of their citizens, their challenges, and their hopes for the future,&#8221; Costa continues. Not only that, governors and mayors &#8220;adapt<span class=\"jCAhz\">\u00a0policies to local conditions.&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_419160\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 534px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/costa-cor.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-419160 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/costa-cor.png\" width=\"534\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/costa-cor.png 534w, https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/costa-cor-300x210.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 534px) 100vw, 534px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-419160\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The President of the European Council, Antonio Costa [Brussels, February 19, 2025]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;\"><span style=\"margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\">The fight against anything that questions Europeanism and the unity that Europeans need to better meet the challenges goes through the regions. Costa punctuates, &#8220;<strong>I count on the Committee of the Regions<\/strong>&#8221; to counter the disconnect between citizens and politics. I count on regional governments and citizens.&#8221; Then, the addendum: &#8220;The geopolitical context demands it.&#8221; A reference to a suddenly different and worse world, to alliances with traditional partners such as the U.S. being questioned and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/02\/17\/kallas-attacks-beijing-china-a-key-enabler-in-russias-war-against-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new alliances in the East<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0px;\">To regions concerned that the next multi-year budget (MFF 2028\u20132034) may be designed to redefine roles and competencies in a more centralized sense, Costa offers support for the centrality of the territories: &#8220;Subsidiarity and multi-level governance are key principles of the European architecture.<span class=\"HwtZe\" lang=\"en\"><span class=\"jCAhz ChMk0b\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\">\u00a0A way of saying that, for his part, there remains a commitment not to limit the role of the regions.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0&#8220;Subsidiarity implies that decisions are taken at the most needed level.&#8221; Hence, he concludes, &#8220;<strong>multi-level<\/strong><span class=\"jCAhz ChMk0b\"><span class=\"ryNqvb\"><strong>\u00a0governance is the foundation on which we can build a stronger and more prosperous Europe for all<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European Council president to Committee of the Regions: &#8220;EU put to the test, I count on you&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":419158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681,25727],"tags":[27175,26958,26671,30526,30527,26961],"class_list":["post-419175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-in-the-spotlight","tag-committee-of-regions-en","tag-good-politics-en","tag-localgovernment","tag-regions-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419175"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419184,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419175\/revisions\/419184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}