The European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Crețu, and the President of the Committee of the Regions, Karl-Heinz Lambertz, reiterated their calls for the multiannual financial framework (MFF) of the EU 2021-2017 to lay emphasis on solidarity, which they feel is the only alternative to a rise in euroscepticism, at the annual ‘State of the Union’ conference at the European University Institute of Florence, on Friday 11 May.
This exchange of observations, which was also attended by the former Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, and Brigid Laffan, lecturer at the European University Institute of Florence, had particular resonance less than ten days off from the Commission’s presentation of its proposal for the forthcoming MFF (see EUROPE 12013).
Crețu took pains to stress that “regional policy is the most visible policy for solidarity […] and should remain the most important policy”. “It will be important in the next period that solidarity remains the core of our unique project”, she added.
Some of these comments were shared by Lambertz, who considers that it is “very important to reinforce visibility within the EU […]. So far, it has been translated by the cohesion policy”. He went on to voice hopes of defending the cohesion policy in the forthcoming negotiations on the multiannual financial framework, as it has been such a “success story”.
However, Lambertz lamented the fact that the Commission has proposed a budget in which expenditure represents just 1.114% of the gross national income (GNI) of the EU; he voiced his preference for a level of 1.3%.
The President of the Committee of the Regions also raised the issue of revenue. “We crucially need own resources for the EU”, he added. This won the support of Brigid Laffan, who approves of the “new basket” of own resources.
The contribution made to this debate by Mario Monti, who headed up a reflection group on own resources in 2017 (see EUROPE 11701), was highly anticipated. Speaking to EUROPE at a press conference, he said that he was pleased with the specific proposals made by the Commission. He considers it a radical change that the member states should not be able to get around.
According to Monti, these resources should receive strong support from the European citizens, who are concerned about their countries paying a share of their wealth into the EU budget. However, he declined to comment on the nature of these possible future own resources.
The former President of the Italian Council also described the Commission’s proposal as “very innovative”, the institution having rethought the EU’s political priorities, for instance laying emphasis on managing the migration challenge. On this point, he received the support of Lambertz, who acknowledged that the EU has “new challenges” to deal with.
Juncker hopes for agreement before European elections. Earlier in the day, Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, had defended the solidarity of the draft post-2020 MFF, particularly by means of the proposal to create a European investment fund (InvestEU) or on the taxation aspects.
Like the European Commissioner for the Budget, Günther Oettinger, Juncker hopes for a unanimous agreement of the member states ahead of the next European elections. Monti also backed this position. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)