"When designing the next EU budget, several new priorities need to be funded. Redesigning the EU budget should therefore be combined with re-evaluating programmes of less priority". ECR Vice-President Juraj Droba represented the Group in today's CoR plenary session in a debate on the future of the EU budget.

The ECR Group welcomes plans for a more focused and policy-based, simpler and impactful EU budget. Our Group calls for a more performance-based budget that does less but better and reflects the real needs at local and regional levels. Learning from the past experience, the EU budget "should become more flexible and responsive to new emerging challenges" added Mr Droba, adding that the proliferation of new programmes and budgetary initiatives has led to "inefficiencies and delays", and resulted in a massive administrative burden for implementing authorities. 

While Droba highlighted that cohesion policy should continue to focus on its primary objective to reduce regional disparities, he also stated that it must be better aligned with the new priorities, especially "strengthening competitiveness and resilience".