Brussels, 06/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of the Regions (CoR) is putting pressure on the European Parliament for it to take a strong stance in the European budget talks to ensure sufficient funding for the regions. The new CoR president, Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso, who came to office in August, had a meeting with the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, on Thursday 6 September, to stress the importance for cities and regions of a positive outcome in the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) budget talks. Valcarcel Siso said the CoR would be backing the European Parliament's aim of ensuring the new EU budget is credible and in closer proximity to citizens, in other words it must allow the regions and cities of Europe to have sufficient resources to stimulate growth and jobs via a robust Cohesion Policy. Valcárcel Siso has the voice of experience behind him because the region of Spain that he heads, Murcia, has been facing serous cash-flow problems since the summer and is expected to ask Madrid for a €300 million bailout from a fund recently created to deal with regional cash-flow problems. Aware of the acute economic problems facing some local authorities, he told Schulz he was planning to organise an annual conference on the financial status of the regions in Europe and hoped to see greater cooperation with the European Investment Bank. He also made clear his commitment to the EUROPE 2020 Strategy, which will be focus of his policies in his two-and-a-half years at the helm of the CoR. (MD/transl.fl)