THE WEEK THAT WAS…

Calling themselves the Friends of Cohesion, 14 government leaders from central and eastern EU countries and some representatives from the south met each other last week in the European Parliament building and plotted a strategy against a campaign to freeze the EU budget. The meeting came ahead of a special budget summit of the European Council at the end of this week. The Friends of Cohesion are trying to preserve as much as they can of a European Commission proposal of €376 billion for cohesion funds in a draft 7 year budget of total € 1.033 trillion! Poland’s Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, the non-official leader of the Friends of Cohesion, said ‘we are all here because we understand that cohesion policy equals growth and creation of jobs’. But Mr Tusk’s club faces another group of memberstates known as the Friends of Better Spending. This group counts only seven members but with a considerably influence because they are all so called ‘net contributors’ to the EU budget. These countries have less to lose if the summit this week ends without agreement. But it would be a problem for the cohesion programmes. The expectations are that the Friends of Cohesion coalition will splinter. The complexities of the budget process leave some of the members much more at risk from cuts than others. Charity starts at home, as the English say…