{"id":457309,"date":"2026-06-18T19:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T17:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/06\/18\/riunione-degli-amici-della-coesione-prima-del-vertice-ue-il-bilancio-non-penalizzi-agricoltura-e-coesione\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:07:05","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T18:07:05","slug":"meeting-of-the-friends-of-cohesion-ahead-of-the-eu-summit-the-budget-must-not-penalise-agriculture-and-cohesion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/06\/18\/meeting-of-the-friends-of-cohesion-ahead-of-the-eu-summit-the-budget-must-not-penalise-agriculture-and-cohesion\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting of the “Friends of Cohesion” ahead of the EU summit: the budget must not penalise agriculture and cohesion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 The European Union\u2019s future budget for the period 2028\u20132034 must enable the Union to tackle new strategic challenges without undermining the policies set out in the Treaties, starting with Cohesion Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy. This is the view of the so-called “Friends of Cohesion”<\/strong>, who held a meeting today ahead of the European Council in Brussels<\/strong>, organised by Italy and Romania and chaired by the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni<\/strong>. The meeting was attended by the heads of state or government of 17 EU countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, and Hungary. The aim set out by the organisers\u2014Meloni and the Romanian President Nicusor Dan\u2014was to strengthen political coordination on the European Union\u2019s next Multiannual Financial Framework, at a stage considered “crucial” in the negotiations that will define the strategic priorities and structure of the future European budget.<\/p>\n

In a press release, Palazzo Chigi (the seat of the Italian Government)<\/p>\n

explained that, during the meeting, the leaders reaffirmed \u201cthe strong consensus that has characterised the joint work launched in December 2025 and culminating in the declaration presented to the General Affairs Council on 26 May\u201d last year, when <\/a>sixteen of them (excluding Cyprus due to its role as holder of the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU) <\/strong>submitted a joint declaration<\/a><\/strong> opposing the European Commission\u2019s proposal for the MFF, which provides for cuts to funding for policies supporting regional development and agriculture.<\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Today, “the shared conviction was reaffirmed that the Union\u2019s future budget must enable us to tackle new strategic challenges without undermining the policies set out in the Treaties, starting with cohesion policy, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy,” Palazzo Chigi emphasised. “The participants underlined that these policies represent essential investments for the future of Europe<\/strong>, capable of strengthening economic, social and territorial cohesion, food security, competitiveness, and the resilience of European communities,” it added. Finally, the leaders of the 17 countries confirmed \u201ctheir shared determination to maintain a united front in the negotiations and to continue coordinated action at the political level as well, ensuring continuity, visibility, and effectiveness in the group\u2019s work throughout all stages of the negotiations on the next Multiannual Financial Framework.\u201d<\/div>\n
This confirms expectations of a complex debate tomorrow amongst the 27 Member States, as well as the search for a balance by the end of the year, with the two “factions” currently pitting the 17 “Friends of Cohesion” countries against the six “Frugal” nations.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organised by Italy and Romania and chaired by the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, the meeting was attended by 17 countries in total. Determined to maintain a united front in the negotiations and to continue coordinated action at the political level as well<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":245442,"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","show_comment_section":"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":[25705,25681],"tags":[26180,26958,28074,26001,34520,26002,31277,33190,34521,34522,31284,33394],"class_list":["post-457309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-politics","tag-commissione-en","tag-council-en","tag-dan","tag-meloni-and","tag-pac-en-2","tag-paesi-ue","tag-proposta-bilancio","tag-riunione","tag-romania-en","tag-ue"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457309","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\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457309"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":457310,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457309\/revisions\/457310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}