Loïg Chesnais-Girard, President of the Regional Council of Brittany and member of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), told a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday 4 November that EU countries should agree to increase their contributions to the 2028-2034 EU budget.
“We cannot simultaneously refuse to accept additional revenue for the EU budget, finance the repayment of the Covid-19 debt, maintain CAP, fisheries and cohesion policy appropriations and launch new defence, digital and housing policies”, he said. In his view, those who promise to fund everything while making savings are either very naive or dishonest.
Once the EU has agreed on its priorities, we will have to face up to the need to ask for additional resources, otherwise certain EU policies will have to be abandoned, defended Loïg Chesnais-Girard. He advocated a debate at European level on the taxation of large groups and the introduction of an EU-wide VAT percentage to finance new policies.
While criticising the proposal to merge EU policies into National and Regional Partnership Plans, Mr Chesnais-Girard acknowledged that the EU “will have to make choices” in the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028-2034. He asked that “part of the European funds continue to be managed at regional level”, so that decisions could be taken as closely as possible to local realities.
To see the Joint Position Paper of 140 regions: https://aeur.eu/f/jak (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)