Don't cut funds for poor members, Polish President tells EU (Roundup)

Sep 1, 2010, 15:48 GMT

Brussels - Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski used his first trip to Brussels on Wednesday to plea that European Union funds for poorer member states should not be cut and pledge closer coordination between the EU and NATO.

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 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.

He also said Poland wanted to preserve handouts from the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which support its large farming population.

The EU's 2014-2020 budget is expected to be worth around 1 trillion euros (1.27 trillion dollars). 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.

Poland is set to steer discussions on the subject in the second half of 2011, when it will inherit the EU's rotating presidency. But Komorowski call for 'solidarity' won immediate support from his first 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 to preserve EU regional spending.

Ahead of his visit, Komoroswki told French newspaper Le Monde that Poland's EU presidency would also push for deeper integration in the defence sector and greater energy security.

Poland is expected to sign a new long-term deal to import gas from Russia within two weeks, but Barroso warned that the commission still had to verify its compatibility with EU single market rules.

In Brussels, Komorowski also met with EU president Herman Van Rompuy, European Parliament head and fellow Pole Jerzy Buzek, Belgian King Albert II and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

With the NATO chief, Komorowski said he would raise the matter of closer cooperation with the EU, currently blocked by mutual vetoes between NATO-member Turkey and EU-member Cyprus.

'Nobody is willing to pay for two different and two independent sources of assets and capabilities, one in NATO and the other one in the EU. So the basic thing here is to ensure full compatibility of decision-making processes,' he said.

The Polish head of state, whose powers are largely ceremonial, also said his country wished to 'revive the Weimar Triangle' with Germany and France, mentioning plans to create a joint battlegroup by 2013.

After Brussels, Komorowski was expected to move on to Paris on Thursday and to Berlin on Friday.