President Puig argues that the EU must restructure itself from the regions and recover its project of social progress - RIS3CV

The President of the Generalitat Valenciana (Regional Government of Valencia), Ximo Puig, has defended to the Committee of the Regions (CoR) plenary session that the European Union must restructure itself from the regions and recover its project of social progress.

Puig, who spoke in plenary as the representative of the Spanish delegation, said that the current situation was "crucial for the European Union".

He therefore stressed the importance of the new budgetary framework for the period 2021-2027 responding to the new challenges' and strengthening European added value', increasing transparency, reducing bureaucracy in order to increase flexibility and orienting actions towards tangible objectives.

The President also regretted that the "exaggerations in austerity policies" during the crisis management have left "many citizens affected" in southern Europe. "Inequalities have increased, essential public services have deteriorated and essential projects and investments have been delayed to face the future," said Puig.

In this regard, the President, in his reply to the Commissioner for Budgets, Günter Oettinger, expressed concern about the "significant" cut in cohesion policies, which, he said, "for the first time, are falling below 30% of the budget", and also in the Common Agricultural Policy. 

"Without cohesion there is no European project", remarked Puig, who pointed out that "citizens must feel safe in an increasingly uncertain and unstable world".

In addition, he has emphasised the need to maintain in the next European budget both the cohesion funds and those of the Common Agricultural Policy through new revenue and has also called for the promotion of major agreements' on the environment and climate change.

Puig therefore insisted on the importance of "tackling with ambition" the new financial framework so that Europeans can participate "in a great project of economic and social progress for themselves and for future generations", while warning that if the aspirations of citizens are not taken into account, "progressive disaffection towards the common European project, populism that deteriorates coexistence and disintegrating tendencies" will increase. 

Analysis of the new budgetary framework 

Following his speech to the CoR, President Ximo Puig also met with the European Commission's Director General for Budgets, Nadia Calviño, and the European Commission's Director General for Regional and Urban Policy, Marc Lemaître, to analyse the impact of the new 2021-2027 budget framework on cohesion funds.