On the eve of the European Council meeting on 18-19 June, the #CohesionAlliance - a coalition of the European Committee of the Regions and leading territorial associations that advocates for strengthening economic, social and territorial cohesion as a fundamental value of the EU - calls on EU leaders to have a genuine political debate on a future budget fit for purpose.
The debate on the Multiannual Financial Framework at such a critical juncture in time cannot be reduced to a short-sighted battle over figures between the so-called “frugals” and the “friends of cohesion”.
In order to forge a more competitive, inclusive, sustainable, resilient and secure Europe, the long-term EU budget must be the tool to deliver EU political objectives, including economic, social and territorial cohesion, in all corners of Europe with policies and instruments that take into account the diversity of regions in Europe and their citizens’ right-to-stay, are decentralised enough by design and responsive to local and societal needs.
The #CohesionAlliance calls on Heads of State and Government to:
• Achieve an agreement on a future EU budget that matches both the ambitions of new political priorities, including competitiveness and security, and the respect for treaty objectives, in particular on economic, social and territorial cohesion.
• Achieve a breakthrough agreement on a basket of new own resources and other sources of revenue.
• Secure a standalone and predictable Cohesion Policy budget, covering all EU categories of regions within the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs) with safeguarded allocations at the regional level and for specific programmes such as Interreg. The NRPPs should pursue the fundamental objective of reinforcing economic, social and territorial cohesion and avoid competition between different sectoral policies, which would otherwise undermine the level playing field within the single market.
• Uphold the subsidiarity principle with multilevel governance and partnership provisions across the EU budget, and agree on strong legal guarantees to ensure that local and regional authorities are actors in their own right regarding the design and delivery of NRPPs.
• Strengthen place-based tools and mechanisms that contribute to the EU’s competitiveness across the entire EU budget to support the deployment of innovation and industrial transformation throughout Europe’s diverse territories.
