Download — EESC opinion: Establishing the European Fund for Regional Development including for European Territorial Cooperation (Interreg) and the Cohesion Fund
The EESC welcomes the 2025 Strategic Foresight Report: Resilience 2.0, while underlining that future reports should also address radical disruptions. The EESC is uniquely placed to detect weak signals and underlying trends in strategic foresight and therefore its foresight-driven viewpoint should continuously feed into the Commission’s policy cycle. The EESC also calls for common, verifiable EU-wide metrics for socio-economic and institutional resilience. In this regard, the EESC is of the view that strategic foresight should also support sustainable and inclusive well-being as part of the European social model.
The debate on new own resources should evolve beyond technical adjustments and become a strategic reflection on how to strengthen the EU’s financial autonomy, cohesion and competitiveness. The EESC encourages the European Commission to further refine the overall design of the proposed own-resources package to make it ambitious, balanced and future-oriented.
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on 19 June 2025 adopted a resolution to provide the European Commission with a contribution to its 2026 work programme.
The EESC warns that a weak long-term EU budget would undermine competitiveness, cohesion, agriculture and democracy. The Committee calls for a stronger, fairer and future-proof multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2028 to 2034.
Public debate on Defence-related investments in the EU budget in the context of the new geopolitical order, to contribute to the final report of the EESC´s ad hoc group on the new geopolitical order, and in the framework of the opinion ECO/679 - Defence-related investments in the EU budget.
Lessons learned and a new Inflation Governance Framework
Event type
Conference
Location
room VMA 22, Van Maerlant 2
Brussels
Belgium
On Wednesday, 3 September 2025, from 14:00 – 17:30 (CET), the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will host an event organised by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, in cooperation with Fondazione Pietro Nenni and tasc, discussing lessons learned from the recent inflation episode and the new inflation governance framework that needs to be developed to prevent or mitigate the supply side inflation shocks in the future.
The objective of the public hearing is to examine how cohesion policy can more effectively address housing affordability challenges to advance its core goals of economic, social and territorial cohesion. The participants will explore how strategic housing investments can stimulate regional economic development, enhance competitiveness, improve labour market efficiency, and reduce territorial disparities. The aim is to provide concrete recommendations for improving the effectiveness of existing instruments for the remainder of the 2021-2027 period and developing a more comprehensive approach to affordable housing within the post-2027 cohesion policy framework.
