Nándor Csepreghy described the meeting of the Visegrád Four held in Prague at the beginning of the week as a breakthrough where, in his words, the attending countries succeeded in convincing the European Commission that the continuation of the cohesion policy is a worthwhile effort.

The Minister of State of the Prime Minister’s Office told the Hungarian News Agency MTI on Wednesday that the European Commission would also represent the interests of the net beneficiary countries in the debate on the continued supply of cohesion funds beyond 2020, in addition to the those of the net contributors of the EU’s budget. The Minister of State reiterated that the meeting of the ministers of the Visegrád Four responsible for EU affairs ended on Tuesday. In addition to the responsible Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian ministers, the meeting was also attended on behalf of the European Commission by Corina Cretu, European Commissioner responsible for cohesion policy, as well as by representatives of Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and Slovenia. Similar to Hungary, the four countries in the region also have a vested interest in the continuation of the common cohesion policy after the current fiscal cycle, beyond 2020, he stressed.

He pointed out: it is a convincing argument that, based on economic calculations, an investment of EUR 1 in any of the countries which joined the EU after 2004 results in orders worth EUR 2-3 in the net contributor countries of the EU budget. He cited as an example that if an awarded Hungarian business uses services upon the completion of a call for proposals, 25 to 30 of those services originate from net contributor countries. If as a result of a development a business buys machinery in Hungary, that machinery is „more than likely” to come from Germany, he said. According to calculations, the contribution to the EU’s budget is recovered several times over within three to five years and the resulting profit is channelled back to the net contributor countries, he added.

The question of cohesion policy on the European agenda is about to become a hot issue as the definition of the post-2020 regulations will fall due shortly, Mr Csepreghy said. The question is what position the net contributors will adopt, and whether a consensus will be reached. This largely depends on how convincingly the net beneficiary Member States will be able to prove that the maintenance of cohesion grants is a pan-European interest, Mr Csepreghy said in summary.

(MTI)