EU Regional Aid to Shrink Under Plan Rebuked by Eastern Members
- European Commission seeks changes to aid eligibility criteria
- Post-Brexit EU budget proposal includes link to rule of law
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The European Union’s executive proposed a cut in regional aid in the bloc’s next budget and stricter conditions to access the funds, a change opposed by east European countries that risk losing billions of euros.
The European Commission’s blueprint for the 2021-2027 EU budget of 1.28 trillion euros ($1.54 trillion) seeks to reduce spending on cohesion policy by about 7 percent, according to Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger. The regional aid and agriculture subsidies, proposed to be lowered by around 5 percent, would suffer the biggest cuts as the commission seeks ways to plug a 10 billion-euro annual hole in the EU coffers that will result from the U.K.’s scheduled withdrawal from the bloc next year.