Raffaele Fitto, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Cohesion and Reform, has held talks with the European Parliament’s Committee on Regional Development (REGI) on support for the EU’s eastern regions bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (see EUROPE 13811/1). He also discussed the reallocation of cohesion policy funds for the period 2021-2027 (see EUROPE 13836/1).
Elsi Katainen (Renew Europe, Finnish) shared her fear that short-term cohesion policy measures would serve as “an envelope that can be used in an emergency”. “We need a certain amount of flexibility, but also long-term planning. So I hope there will be more balance in this respect in the future”, she added.
Valentina Palmisano (The Left, Italian) said it was “worrying” that environmental protection seemed to be becoming optional compared to defence. She fears the risk of creating a precedent where projects are funded regardless of whether they cause harm to the environment or health.
For his part, Marcos Ros Sempere (S&D, Spanish) warned that he would work to ensure that governance in the next Multiannual Financial Framework was multi-level and to reincorporate into cohesion policy the principle of association and the real involvement of regional and local authorities.
“It was on a voluntary basis that the Member States were able to choose whether or not they wished to redirect resources to other priorities”, said the Vice-President.
He called on MEPs to visit neighbouring countries to see the situation for themselves. “We don’t really have a defence and security problem. We have a major problem with cohesion in these areas. The phenomenon of depopulation in these areas is serious”, he said.
He pointed out that cohesion funding in these regions is earmarked for dual-use resources, both civilian and military. “It was not we who decided to move money from social projects to defence projects, but the national and regional governments, which are responsible for these programmes, who asked for resources to be moved so that they could intervene in another direction”, he defended. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)