The Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia Marjan Šarec met today in Brussels with the President of the European Council of Charles Michel.

The central theme of the talks was the negotiations on the EU's multiannual financial framework 2021-2027.  In the last week, President Michel carries out bilateral talks with the heads of Member States of the twentieth-decade, on the basis of which he wishes to make a compromise agreement on the EU's multiannual financial framework 2021-2027. For this purpose, it is 20. A special European Council meeting is also convened in February 2020. Marjan Šarec stressed in the conversation that a strong European Union needs an ambitious and forward-looking budget. Therefore, a sufficient amount of funding for cohesion policy is also crucial, allowing for the uniform development of the Member States or their regions. Drastic reductions in cohesion funds for Member States or regions are not acceptable. The interview specifically highlighted the key priorities and expectations of Slovenia in the negotiations on the EU's multiannual financial framework 2021-2027. These include ensuring a sufficient range of cohesion funds for Slovenia, with the need to properly address the problem of using newer statistics on the development of countries and regions, resulting from a lag in negotiations. Slovenia also expects the solution to the projected excessive fall in cohesion funding for western Slovenia. It also advocates raising funds for rural development where the European Commission has proposed an excessive reduction. Prime Minister Šarec also reminded the President of the European Council of the joint statement of the leaders of the group of Friends of the cohesion at the end of the week in Portugal, in which they took an ambitious, balanced and equitable Agreement on the EU's multiannual financial framework for the following Seven-year period, expressing a clear objection to the reduction of cohesion policy funding. They specifically pointed out that no Member State should be given a drastic and non-proportional reduction in cohesion funds. As is known, in May 2018, the European Commission presented a proposal for a multiannual financial framework of 2021 to 2027 amounting to EUR 1135 billion (1.11% of the EU27 GNI). In doing so, the group of countries of the net wage insists on a reduction of the aforementioned volume to only EUR 1020 billion (1.0% of the EU27 GNI), i.e. 115 billion less, with the largest cuts in the areas of cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy. The Finnish Presidency of the EU Council presented in December 2019 a compromise proposal for a future multiannual financial framework in which it envisaged a reduction in the MFF volume to EUR 1087 billion, with additional reductions also Cohesion policy, which assessed cohesion countries as unacceptable. Source of photos: newsroom.consilium.europa.eu