Don't cut funds for poorer member states, Polish President tells EU

Sep 1, 2010, 10:38 GMT

Brussels - Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski used his first foreign trip to Brussels on Wednesday to plea that European Union funds for poorer member states should not be cut.

Poland - backed by fellow ex-communist EU members Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic - is leading efforts to ring-fence the so-called 'cohesion' spending ahead of negotiations over the EU's next multi-annual budget.

'We expect that cohesion funds are maintained. It is so important to make solidarity real, to make our development levels more equal,' Komorowski said.

The EU's 2014-2020 budget is expected to be worth around 1 trillion euros (1.27 trillion dollars). The current spending plans for 2007-2013 allocate around 35 per cent to cohesion funds, which benefit all EU states but mainly go to poorer regions in Central and Eastern Europe.

However, in the current mood of austerity, some of the biggest contributors to the EU budget - Germany, France, Britain and Italy - are said to be less inclined to subsidise growth in the bloc's poorer members.

Komorowski's call for 'solidarity' was backed by his host, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

'We agreed on the need to maintain a strong cohesion policy,' Barroso said, recalling that already in his previous role as Portuguese Prime Minister he fought for the EU's regional spending.

Komorowski was set to continue his visit to Brussels by meeting later Wednesday with EU president Herman Van Rompuy, the head of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, a fellow Pole, and with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

He is expected to move on to Paris on Thursday and to Berlin on Friday.