The proposed future EU budget and CBC
DG REGIO released in May 2025 the Harvesting report on post 2027 INTERREG: Results of stakeholder, citizen and programme consultations. It also includes the results from the IVY Consultation, and shows the AEBR’s involvement among the Stakeholder Reports (CMPR, COR, IVY (AEBR), MOT, TERAM).
Then, in the middle of July, the Commission presented its Multi-Annual Financial Framework 2028-2034 proposal. There are many ongoing analyses which we are trying to summarise in this news on our website, but we would take CoR’s Thomas Wobben indication that, among the many documents, there is a published impact assessment for the “European Fund for economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and rural, maritime, prosperity and security for the period 2028-2034”, which raises several aspects of interests, such as the lack of a territorial impact assessment in this proposal, with only a qualitive assessment of the funding scenarios. Furthermore, many policy assumptions are made without providing any sources or any quantitative evidences; the added value of EU policies such as Cohesion is reduced to their role in achieving EU priorities instead of Treaty objectives; complexity and simplification are only assessed by the number of programmes without considering their real value for Multi-level Governance and Partnership; the impact of denying regions to develop their own regional programmes based on a strategic partnership with the Commission services is largely been ignored, etc.
Instead of providing a factual and impartial impact assessment the paper provides rather an argumentation why a National Plan with potentially Regional Chapters (that are negotiated between the Member State and the regions) is a better solution than the current system where regions negotiate at eyesight their programmes with the European Commission (while at the same time taking into account the national priorities as part of the Partnership Agreement).
However, the amounts for Interreg seem to be kept (more than 10 billion Euro), and this also means that CBC has been integrated into the EU DNA.
In the Commission’s Staff Working Document accompanying the budget proposal, we can find the following text:
The current several hundreds of programmes adopted within the cohesion policy framework will be subsumed into one national and regional partnership plan per Member State and one Interreg plan. The plan will integrate the dimensions currently covered in the partnership agreement and the programmes, enhancing policy coherence through a single programming exercise and maximising synergies. A single framework will set out the rules governing the plans’ funding for pre-allocated envelopes, reducing risks of overlap between frameworks, and massively cutting administrative costs for Member States’ authorities and beneficiaries alike. Each Member State, with close involvement of regional and local authorities and other relevant stakeholders such as social partners and civil society organisations, will be responsible for drawing up their plan and for proposing the relevant key investments, reforms and other interventions, which could be organised in thematic/sectoral and/or regional chapters.
Now the question is: How will the Member States implement this? First, with BRIDGEforEU’s approval, there is a clear sign that Member States are taking cross-border aspects more seriously. This is probably a consequence of the pandemic, which has also brought more frequent border controls… It is very important to establish clear spaces to discuss the architecture and management of future programmes. CBC has clearly shown its enormous value for money in terms of European integration, trust-building across national boundaries and sustainable regional development.
From the AEBR, we have already been able to address some Member States, such as Luxembourg, Germany and France. We are currently planning meetings with Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Greece, but additional contacts with the Member States through local stakeholders would also be very helpful.
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