Vasco Cordeiro rejects EU competitiveness push at cohesion’s expense

Vasco Cordeiro rejected an EU focus on competitiveness at the expense of cohesion while speaking to Portuguese journalists in Brussels about the 2028-2034 EU budget, which is under discussion, on the sidelines of the Committee of the Regions plenary session.

Cordeiro, president of the Commission for Cohesion Policy and EU Budget and a deputy in the Azores Regional Assembly, said it would be deeply negative if the proposal were approved exactly as presented, both in funding amounts and its governance model. He said an agreement should improve the proposal in both areas.

He said the proposal was much more than a budget because it introduced deep and radical changes to its implementation and, therefore, to how the European Union functions. Cordeiro, also rapporteur on the opinion on the National and Regional Partnership Plans Fund regulation, said cohesion is a policy of the present, as the single market is, and described it as the other side of the single market.

Cordeiro said competitiveness cannot mean sacrificing cohesion. He warned that communities far from major centres could feel excluded, with democratic consequences including protest voting, abstention, the growth of extremism and a weakening of the European project. He said cohesion is a democratic value.

The sources state that outermost regions including the Azores and Madeira are not mentioned in the proposal for the next long-term EU budget. The Irish presidency of the Council of the EU proposed on Saturday an 8% cut to the European Commission's 2028-2034 multiannual budget proposal, to 1.62 trillion euros, without substantially changing cohesion and agriculture.

The 24th European Week of Regions and Cities began in Brussels on Monday and runs until Wednesday, bringing together more than 100 initiatives and five thousand participants.

This site previously reported that an MEP called for a larger EU budget to protect cohesion funding.

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