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Brussels – The priority of Slovak regions in the context of the mid-term review of the EU long-term budget and integrated territorial investments was the main topic of Wednesday’s discussions in Brussels between the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission (EC) responsible for EU funds, Raffael Fitt, Member of the European Parliament Ľubica Karvašová (RE, PS), and four chairpersons of Slovak self-governing regions. This was reported by TASR correspondent.
Karvašová, who is a member of the European Parliament Committee on Regional Development, confirmed to TASR that the discussions at the EC headquarters took place at her initiative together with the head of the Association of Self-Governing Regions of Slovakia (SK8), so that this could happen during the meeting of the Committee of the Regions in Brussels. She specified that the chairpersons of all eight self-governing regions were approached on this matter, and the chairperson of SK8 and the chairperson of the Trnava region, Jozef Viskupič, the chairperson of the Bratislava region, Juraj Droba, the chairperson of the Banskobystrica region, Ondrej Lunter, and the chairperson of the Košice region, Rastislav Trnka, attended the discussions with Fitt regarding the use of regional EU funds. The chairperson of the Prešov region, Milan Majerský, apologized for family reasons.
“This meeting comes at an important time, as negotiations are currently underway on how we are going to intervene and enter the current cohesion policy and EU funds and what priorities we need to emphasize,” she said.
She reminded that the European Commission in its proposal from April of this year presented five priorities to which funds can be redirected, such as defense, competitiveness, and others. According to her, Slovak regions want to safeguard the funds that help them in their development.
“Today’s meeting was about Slovakia, about what regions need to improve, change, and enhance in order to provide better services for their residents,” she explained.
Karvašová claims that the Slovak delegation received specific promises from Commissioner Fitt. She emphasized that in the parliamentary committee for regional development, she represents the citizens of all Slovak cities and regions and will act in their interest. “We are entering a phase in which we will advocate for a safeguard in the legislation on the revision of cohesion policy, so that no regional EU funds are misused and these resources are not redirected to the government’s priorities,” she described the situation. She added that if the government has priorities it wants to finance from new sources arising from the EC proposals, it should seek money for that in the EU funds designated for national projects. (May 14)
“This meeting comes at an important time, as negotiations are currently underway on how we are going to intervene and enter the current cohesion policy and EU funds and what priorities we need to emphasize.” Ľubica Karvašová