In a debate with the European Commission on Thursday 7 April, members of the Committee of the Regions’ Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy and Budget (COTER) called for “fresh money” and more resources to provide long-term support to regions hosting Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.
While members welcomed the recent CARE and CARE+ initiatives to support the regions (see EUROPE 12928/11), several regions, including Poland, stressed the need for fresh money and a real coordinated European initiative, as the resources of the cohesion policy for the 2014-2020 period have been exhausted. The Polish regions also note that the Russian war in Ukraine is having a strong impact on many economic sectors, including tourism, which will also have to be compensated for.
The day before the debate, the leaders of the CoR’s six political groups met in Rzeszów, near the Polish border with Ukraine, with CoR President Apostolos Tzitzikostas, Elisa Ferreira, the European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, and Younous Omarjee (The Left, France), chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI), as well as Tetiana Yehorova-Lutsenko, chairwoman of the Kharkiv District Council. In particular, common rules and an acceleration of the implementation on the ground of the €17 billion released at European level were requested. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)