On Thursday 17 July, President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) Kata Tüttő (PES, Hungarian) strongly criticised the European Commission’s proposals for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). In particular, she accused Ursula von der Leyen of orchestrating a veritable ‘Hunger Games’, pitting cities, regions and climate policies against farmers.
During a meeting with a number of journalists, she said that the Commission president was sending the following message to Member States: “You have this money, [you] decide what’s important and what’s not”. And Kata Tüttő added: “If I were a national government, I wouldn’t take this deal”.
She described the idea of setting up ‘national and regional partnership plans’ based on investment and reform as a “big ugly deal”. And this, while in recent months, Ms von der Leyen has spoken reassuringly, presenting cohesion policy as a founding pillar of the Union and insisting on the role of local authorities and the importance of territorial and multi-level governance. “But we sense the smoke”, acknowledged Ms Tüttő.
The CoR president denounced a vast movement towards centralisation. Firstly, through the increasing nationalisation of many policies: agricultural, cohesion, migration, border control and even social policies. “Everything Ursula von der Leyen isn’t interested in is being lumped together in one bag [...], and that bag is being handed over to national governments [...], under the smoke of simplification”, she said.
In her view, the proposed deal amounts to allocating half of the Union’s budget to Member States, in the form of highly flexible national envelopes. In return, the Commission retains control of the other half, via instruments such as those dedicated to competitiveness. And even these national envelopes are subject to conditions: the funds are linked to implementing reforms. For Ms Tüttő, “this really breaks the backbone of cohesion policy”.
In her view, Ms von der Leyen prefers to concentrate on “the big, shiny things”: investment in giga-companies, digital technology, space and the defence industry.
The CoR president also believes that, from a local and regional perspective, this budget proposal is trying to “overwrite the European treaties“. Cohesion policy, she stresses, is a fundamental pillar of the European Union, an essential stabilisation tool that supports the single market and makes it work. “This is not a charity fund. [...] If we dissolve cohesion policy in this monstrous pack, cohesion policy will lose its main role”, she assured.
Ms Tüttő is committed to defending this policy of long-term stability. “It has to remain a standalone policy, not part of a package that’s up for Hunger Games in the Member States”, she insisted. She pointed out that over 70% of European policies are implemented at local and regional level. “We will fight for a standalone cohesion policy with ownership at local and regional level”.
“I don’t want to improve this proposal, I want to reject it”, insisted the CoR president.
Ms Tüttő warned against confusion surrounding the actual size of the 2028-2034 budget dedicated to cohesion policy. In her view, grouping everything (agriculture, cohesion, debt repayment) into this “monstrous fund” poses a real risk of reducing the overall budget.
She acknowledged that Commission Executive Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms Raffaele Fitto had fought to defend cohesion policy and had “saved” certain elements of it (see EUROPE 13682/5).
She added that the most important thing was not to use blackmail over the amounts, but to reject the proposed structure, because “otherwise we will lose cohesion policy”.
Marie-Antoinette Maupertuis (European Alliance Group, French), president of the Corsican Assembly and CoR rapporteur on the EU budget and territorialised policies, denounced the fact that “what we see coming is creeping recentralisation. Disappearance of the regions. A rationale for national plans that marginalises the regions”. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)