The President of the Adriatic Ionian Euroregion and Prefect of the Dubrovnik Neretva County, Nikola Dobroslavić, as member of the CoR, participated in the Video Conference of the Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy that was held on 24/09/2020. The COTER Commission Meeting hosted an exchange of views with the European Commission Director-General for Budget (BUDG), Mr. Gert Jan Koopman, on the current state of negotiations of the 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework.

President Dobroslavić spoke on behalf of the European People’s Party in the Committee of the Regions, expressing his satisfaction for the closure of the negotiations on the new EU budget and recovery plan.

He emphasized that the adoption of the related documents before the start of the new financial period is of the utmost importance for the EU and its regions and cities. The EU Cohesion and the Common Agricultural policies are key to regions’ and cities’ development and the fact that they received appropriate treatment in all EU documents is a good result, concluded Dobroslavić.

On 21 July this year, EU leaders reached an agreement on a total budget of € 1,824.3 billion. The package included the multiannual financial framework (€ 1,074.3 billion) and an extraordinary recovery instrument called the “Next Generation EU” (€ 750 billion) aimed at helping rebuild the EU following the COVID-19 pandemic and at supporting green investment and the digital transition. Negotiations with the European Parliament on the details of the proposal have then begun and are expected to be concluded by the German Presidency of the Council by the end of the year.

The Adriatic Ionian Euroregion welcomed the essence of the deal reached by the European Council, since it foresees an adequate budget for EU policies and instruments that are crucial to local and regional authorities, such as the Cohesion Policy, REACT-EU or the Connecting Europe Facility.

In the light of the highly differentiated impact that the crisis is having across EU regions and territories, the Adriatic Ionian Euroregion calls the EU institutions to increase the territorial dimension of investment plans as well as the involvement of regional authorities in their design and implementation.