McDonnell: “The regional part of the Partnership Plans must be real”
EA Group Vice-President Declan McDonnell called for cohesion and agriculture to be protected and for local and regional authorities to have a guaranteed role in the future National and Regional Partnership Plans, as EU leaders gathered for the opening of the 2026 European Week of Regions and Cities.
The 2026 European Week of Regions and Cities opened on Monday 12 October in the European Parliament under the theme “Strong Regions, Strong Europe”.
The high-level opening brought together European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, European Council President António Costa, European Commission Executive Vice-President Raffaele Fitto and European Committee of the Regions President Kata Tüttő. Former Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen also addressed participants before representatives of the six CoR political groups reacted to the debate.
Speaking on behalf of the European Alliance Group, Declan McDonnell, councillor in Galway and EA Group Vice-President, focused on the negotiations on the EU’s next long-term budget for 2028–2034 and on the negotiating box presented by the Irish Presidency just two days earlier.
McDonnell described the Irish proposal as “a serious starting point to achieve agreement”, while acknowledging that no side would obtain everything it wanted.
He particularly welcomed the Presidency’s decision to protect shared-management funding for cohesion policy and agriculture from further cuts, stressing that these policies are investments in communities, food security, competitiveness and Europe’s resilience.
At the same time, he warned that the overall size of the future EU budget remained insufficient compared with the Union’s growing ambitions.
“Europe cannot ask its regions, cities, rural communities, islands and mountain regions to do more and more with less and less.”
A central part of his intervention concerned the proposed National and Regional Partnership Plans, which would become a key vehicle for EU investment under the future budget.
McDonnell welcomed changes in the Irish Presidency text recognising that the role of regions should be safeguarded and allowing regional managing authorities to negotiate directly with the European Commission. However, he argued that regional participation could not be left to the goodwill of national governments.
“If we call them National and Regional Partnership Plans, the regional part must be real,” he said, calling for local and regional authorities to have a guaranteed role in designing, negotiating and implementing the plans.
He also rejected the idea that Europe must choose between cohesion and competitiveness as they are two objectives that reinforce each other: investment in stronger territories, infrastructure, skills and local economies also strengthens the Single Market and Europe’s overall competitiveness.
McDonnell concluded that the Irish Presidency proposal could provide a basis for the negotiations ahead, but stressed three priorities for the EA Group: protect cohesion, protect agriculture and make partnership with regions and cities real.
The 24th edition of the EU Regions’ Week is taking place from 12 to 14 October 2026 in Brussels.