On Monday 12 October, nearly 5,000 people filed into Brussels for the annual European Week of Regions and Cities, now in its 24th year. By Thursday, EU leaders were in Brussels arguing over how much Europe should spend on itself for seven years, and a summit planned for Riyadh had been called off. Same week, different rooms, one thread: who pays, and who gets to decide.
Regions take the stage
The motto was “Strong Regions, Strong Europe”. The Commission organised it alongside the bloc’s committee of local and regional authorities, with Executive Vice-President Raffaele Fitto as host. Roberta Metsola, António Costa and Kata Tüttő were billed as speakers at the opening ceremony.
A good deal of the agenda turned on what the Commission calls the “Right to Stay”: giving people the chance to prosper in the place they call home. The numbers behind it are stark. In the last twenty years, 149 million people, one in three Europeans, lived in a region that shrank. Discussions during the week will help shape a Commission strategy on the subject, which is due early in 2027.
Wednesday’s focus was cohesion and competitiveness. Regions and member states have voluntarily moved €34.6 billion within the 2021-2027 cohesion funds to areas such as housing, defence, water and energy resilience, and €15.2 billion of that went specifically to competitiveness. The REGIOSTARS Awards, for the best projects backed by cohesion policy, drew a record 274 applications. Twenty-five finalists were chosen, and the winners were due to be named at 19:00 on Wednesday 14 October. That afternoon the Commission was also scheduled to present the Megalizzi-Niedzielski Prize to three young journalists. The prize honours two young reporters, Antonio Megalizzi and Bartek Niedzielski, killed in the Strasbourg attack of December 2018.
A budget nobody likes
The mood shifted when leaders met for the EU summit on Thursday 15 October. Ireland, which holds the rotating presidency, had proposed a 2028-2034 budget of 1.62 trillion euros, 141 billion euros below the Commission’s opening offer. Few were satisfied.
“This is far too big, far too expensive,” Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said as he arrived. He said it would raise Sweden’s net contribution by almost 60%. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said “no member state in the EU can afford to pay contributions into the Union on such a level” and doubted a conclusion could come that weekend. Seventeen other countries known as the “Friends of Cohesion” are defending farm payments and money for poorer regions; together those two areas account for roughly two thirds of the budget. Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin warned that cuts could leave the bloc with less capacity to act together.
Costa, who takes over the negotiating from Ireland, told reporters: “We need to deliver by the end of this year.” Missing that date would not cut off funding, since nations have another year. But the money still has to be flowing by January 2028, and all 27 members and the European Parliament must sign off. Leaders are likely to take up the budget again when they meet in late November, then at a summit in mid-December.
Riyadh summit postponed
Also on Thursday, the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council postponed their summit, set for 24 October in Riyadh, as Houthi drone and missile attacks hit Saudi Arabia. Bloomberg reported that the strikes have claimed at least 18 lives in the past week. The GCC statement cited the Houthis’ “continued attempts to target the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its civilian infrastructure”. No new date has been set. The Commission said it “remains committed to deepening this partnership”.
Sources
- EU Week of Regions and Cities convenes 5,000 participants to discuss the future of cohesion policy (EC Representation in Luxembourg)
- EU leaders push back on a major budget proposal (AP, via Newsday)
- EU-GCC summit in Saudi Arabia postponed amid Houthi missile attacks (Bloomberg, via Business Standard)
