The future budget of the European Union: priorities of progressive cities and regions

The impact of the crisis on the 100,000 local and regional authorities of the European Union is enormous. At the same time, there are huge regional disparities regarding the impact of the pandemic both between regions of different Member States and within the same Member State.

The recovery from the COVID-19 crisis will heavily depend on the investment capacity of cities and regions, particularly when it comes to social policy, public services and sustainable development. The recovery's success will therefore depend on the financial means cities and regions will have at their disposal.

Restarting after the crisis will not be possible without solidarity. Restarting together means guaranteeing that all regions and cities will have access to European funds, in particular to the structural and investment funds of the cohesion policy.

Following the new proposal for a Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) by the European Commission and the Next Generation EU package, this meeting aims at: taking stock of the state of negotiations on the eve of the European Council of 18 and 19 June and defining the priorities of our political family for regions and cities; discussing how the EU's cohesion policy can become the essential recovery pillar for our territories; offering progressive local and regional politicians a platform to exchange views on this topic, in particular for our young local leaders network.

The meeting took place on the video conferencing online platform ‟Zoom” and was live-streamed on our Facebook page (see below).

This event was in French, without interpretation.