As the gloves come off in the negotiations on the EU’s next long-term budget, Kata Tüttő, the Committee of Regions president, told Euractiv why regional and cohesion policy must not be treated as a second-class concern.
Tüttő fears that a European Commission’s structural overhaul of the budget, now signed off by capitals, will weaken cohesion policy – designed to make sure poorer regions don’t fall behind.
Under the €1.76 trillion budget plan, cohesion is ultimately nationalised whereas competitiveness becomes the big-ticket item as an explicit EU priority for the 2028-2034 spending plan.
“Cohesion policy is not a European policy in the budget proposal,” Tüttő, a Hungarian socialist, argued. “Europe creates the winners, member states are left to deal with the losers, with fewer resources.”
‘Just a bag of money’
