Brussels, 26/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - Against the backdrop of the presidential election campaign in France, French Socialist and Green MEPs are concerned that there may be a fall in the cash for cohesion in the EU's post-2013 budget as a result of the attitude of a number of countries, including France. Karima Delli (Greens/EFA, France) said that many countries at the General Affairs Council of 24 April (see EUROPE 10601) had argued for slashing of EU budget, with cohesion policy the main target. French socialist MEP Estelle Grelier, a member of the EP's budgets committee, said that the problem was the overriding atmosphere of austerity and the main victim of this short-term reasoning was likely to be the cohesion policy. French MEPs are unhappy about the idea of scrapping the category of “transition” regions, which would affect ten regions of France. Patrice Tirolien (S&D, France), a member of the European Parliament's regional development committee, said that national selfishness was jeopardising moves to increase fairness, while Catherine Trautmann, chair of the French Socialist delegation to the EP, took an even harder line on her own country, pointing out that France has seemed lukewarm recently in its support for the creation of a “transition regions” category while at the same time calling for a cut in the EU's budget, and this hypocritical attitude was leading Europe to disaster. (MD/transl.fl)