Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa has invited the leaders of the so-called ‘friends of cohesion’ Member States to a summit in Portugal, scheduled for Saturday 1 February, to reiterate their opposition to a cut in cohesion policy funding after 2020, several sources told EUROPE on Tuesday 21 January.
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, is continuing his consultations with the EU Member States with a view to assessing the best moment to try to bring the European Council to an agreement on the EU’s next multiannual financial framework (MFF) (see EUROPE 12400/2). It is not certain, according to the latest rumours, whether an extraordinary European Council will be convened in the second half of February.
The ‘friends of cohesion’ summit could be held outside Lisbon, sources said. It will follow on from the Prague meeting in November 2019, at which 16 countries called for cohesion policy appropriations to be maintained over the 2021-2027 period (see EUROPE 12387/1). This position is in opposition to those countries known as ‘net contributors to the budget’; (Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, etc.), which wish to limit the expenditures over the 2021-2027 period to 1% of the EU’s gross national income (GNI).
Financing the EU’s new challenges (climate, migration) and Brexit may lead to a reduction in cohesion funding in the next MFF, to the detriment of the EU’s ‘solidarity policy’, the ‘friends of cohesion’ worry. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)