Preserving the principles of multi-level governance and partnership; introducing mandatory territorial chapters in National and Regional Partnership Plans; strengthening place-based territorial instruments such as ITI, CLLD and LEADER; and ensuring that territorial impact assessments become an integral part of future National and Regional Partnership Plans. These were the key proposals raised by Emil Boc Co-rapporteur of the Opinion on the NRPP Fund Regulation, Committee of the Regions during a public hearing organised by the European Parliament's Committee on Regional Development (REGI) on strengthening partnership and multi-level governance in the future National and Regional Partnership Plans. Boc stressed that the future of cohesion policy will determine whether Europe becomes more united or more divided.
Emil Boc warned against the growing trend towards centralisation of EU funds after 2027, arguing that cohesion policy must not become collateral damage of large national investment plans. He underlined that cohesion policy remains one of the greatest instruments ever created to transform the European idea into everyday reality. In this regard, he also called for a legally defined "regional check" and a subsidiarity clause guaranteeing the involvement of local and regional authorities from the earliest stages of policy design through to implementation and evaluation. "We have already seen what happened with the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Too often, consultation became a box-ticking exercise. Local and regional authorities were formally consulted, but their contributions had little influence on the final outcome. We cannot repeat that mistake if we want to preserve the future of cohesion policy," Boc said. He stressed that Europe cannot be reduced to a union of capitals alone, but must remain a Union where capitals, regions and cities work together as equal partners.
Closing the discussion, MEP Daniel Buda raised concerns about the suspension of EU funds when Member States fail to fulfil certain conditionalities. He stressed that local and regional authorities, farmers, businesses, NGOs and citizens should not be penalised for circumstances beyond their control and called for safeguards to protect final beneficiaries from the consequences of non-compliance by national authorities. Buda also underlined the importance of maintaining agriculture and cohesion policy as two distinct pillars of European investment, noting that both pursue different objectives, support different beneficiaries and remain essential for balanced development across all territories of the European Union.
Earlier this week the EPP-CoR adopted the Rhodes declaration which stresses the need for new genuine EU own resources to avoid cuts to key programmes, calls for the timely adoption of the next MFF by the end of 2026, and underlines that Europe’s future budget must remain place-based and territorially sensitive, with cities and regions fully involved in the design and implementation of the future National and Regional Partnership Plans.