Stronger cohesion vital for stronger cities and regions [Promoted content]

Walking through the city of Dubrovnik a few months ago during a summer holiday, and again recently when participating in an EPP Local Dialogue to celebrate the successes achieved in ten years of Croatian membership of the EU, I could witness with my own eyes the huge investments made thanks to EU funding. Today the city is a touristic hub and just like other parts of Croatia, it has benefitted immensely from EU membership. The adoption of the Euro and joining the Schengen Area have been instrumental for local development. 

Olgierd Geblewicz is the President of the EPP-CoR Group and President of the West Pomerania Region.

Internal reforms and policies adopted by the Croatian government, thanks to the leadership and political vision of Andrej Plenković, Prime Minister of Croatia, in particular decentralisation and greater fiscal autonomy, are two pillars which are allowing citizens to benefit more from EU membership and to ensure that least developed regions catch up with the most developed areas of the country.

The success Croatia has experienced in the past 10 years is also thanks to the continued support from Cohesion Policy, one of the most tangible investment policies of the European Union. As Dubravka Šuica, Vice-President of the European Commission for Democracy and Demography and former Mayor of Dubrovnik said during the EPP Local Dialogue, the Pelješac Bridge in Dubrovnik opened last year shows the essence of the European Union in bridging and connecting from rural and urban areas, to people and cultures, all through common EU values.

This is why we, EPP regional and local leaders and community representatives, have adopted the Dubrovnik Declaration calling for more legal guarantees to be set out in future programming periods to ensure greater decentralisation and the full involvement of local and regional authorities in the design, implementation and management of Cohesion Policy projects on the ground, in line with the principle of subsidiarity. This will ensure that the highest possible levels of impact and efficiency are achieved. The key principles of Cohesion Policy, such as its multi-level governance and partnership approach, must remain central to achieving a prosperous European Union where mutual support affords every citizen the opportunity to develop their full potential.

We regional and local leaders reiterate that economic, social and territorial cohesion must remain a fundamental objective and guiding principle of our European Union, in order to ensure that Croatia’s substantial progress is replicated throughout all Member States. Promoting cohesion fosters a sense of solidarity and mutual support among Member States, which is critical to maintaining peace, stability and security in Europe. It also helps addressing demographic challenges that are reshaping European regions and that risk undermining the EU’s and its regions’ competitiveness if left unaddressed. It is an unquestionably vital tool in ensuring unity across the continent, helping to prevent the intensification of existing structural vulnerabilities and newly emerging disparities that result from the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

While others try to sow division, we in the EU are eager to build bridges. I want to thank local and regional leaders in Croatia for being strong pro-EU supporters for all those eager to join the EU. Their efforts, including cross-border cooperation with neighbouring countries should also be strengthened, as this helps to meet the cohesion, neighbourhood and enlargement objectives in a cross-cutting way. The success story of the EU enlargement to Croatia included full involvement of local and regional authorities in the accession process, a path to be promoted also in the Western Balkans region. We must make certain that candidate countries remain firmly on a trajectory towards future EU membership – a vital condition for ensuring lasting security and stability on the European continent, in the face of persisting Russian aggression and interference from hostile foreign actors. Following the footsteps of Croatia and its local and regional authorities, we call for a renewed commitment to enlargement, particularly in areas such as the Western Balkans, in order to secure stability in the region, the well-being and prospects of all citizens in these candidate countries, and to reverse the worrying trend of increasing citizens’ mistrust towards the EU resulting from the lack of concrete progress on the issue of EU accession.