Europe's regions are in danger of being squeezed as the EU considers sweeping changes to the way its 27 member states spend their money, warns the European official tasked with reducing inequalities among the bloc's hundreds of towns and regions.
Kata Tütto, a Hungarian socialist, and president of the European Committee of the Regions, tells Talking Europe's Douglas Herbert that the EU's next long-term budget, which runs from 2028 to 2034, risks quietly shrinking the money that underpins local investment under the EU's region-focused Cohesion Policy.
At the centre of the controversy is a proposed "mega-fund" worth roughly €865 billion, which would pool money for farmers and poorer regions in a single pot.
That may sound vast. But spread across seven years and 260 regions, the reality is far less impressive, Tütto says. Under the current proposals, funding for regions would fall to roughly half of today's level. It's a shift that could hollow out the EU's cohesion policy, the main tool designed to reduce economic gaps between Europe's cities and regions.
The timing, Tüttő argues, could hardly be worse. Every region – rich or poor – is undergoing a demographic, climate and technological transition. In a world of constant crisis and mounting threats, she warns, governments are tempted to sacrifice long-term investment for short-term fixes, centralising decisions and draining attention and money away from the local level.
While Tüttő accepts that defence and security now dominate the political agenda, she challenges the definition of what security means. It is not only about tanks, borders or drones, she says, but also about safe drinking water, affordable housing, clean energy and resilient infrastructure – the everyday needs that allow societies to function when shocks hit.
Tütto's message to Brussels is blunt: Europe cannot project strength abroad if it allows inequality and instability to grow at home.
Undermining Cohesion Policy, she warns, would weaken the very base that allows the European Union to act together economically, politically and strategically.
Programme prepared by Perrine Desplats, Oihana Almandoz, Paul Guianvarc'h and Isabelle Romero
English (US) · 