On Wednesday 22 October, the new President of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Ireland’s Séamus Boland, criticised the European Commission’s proposal for the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), in particular the dilution of resources for agriculture and cohesion policy within national and regional plans.
“I am not sure we should go down that road”, said Mr Boland in response to a question from Agence Europe. In his view, merging the two policies looks very much like an “admission of failure” and could lead to a situation where one policy is ‘sucked in’ by the other.
The EESC’s new president felt that financial and military support for Ukraine should continue. This will involve increasing national defence budgets.
Nevertheless, according to Mr Boland, civil society and the social partners need to be involved “as a matter of urgency” in the decisions made if citizens are to accept the effort required. If it is just a question of increasing military power without them seeing any benefits in terms of preserving fundamental European values or creating jobs, “I don’t think citizens will accept that”, he said.
Taking over from his predecessor, Oliver Röpke (see EUROPE 13530/23), Mr Boland will place the issue of access to housing at the heart of his priorities. In his view, the EU institutions need to listen and tackle a phenomenon that is of great concern to young people. “We’ve to build trust back. The housing issue has to be resolved”, he stressed, after meeting the President of the European Council, António Costa, on the same day. Costa has put the issue on the agenda for the European summit on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Croatian Marija Hanževački, responsible for communication, and the Czech Alena Mastantuono, responsible for budgetary issues, were elected EESC vice-presidents. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)