Nausėda and EU leaders urge protection of farming and cohesion funds

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda and 16 other EU leaders have urged the bloc to preserve funding for cohesion and agriculture in its next long-term budget, LRT reported.

The leaders sent a letter to the Irish prime minister, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, about the 2028–2034 budget, the Lithuanian President’s Office said.

The letter says the EU faces growing challenges in security and defence, competitiveness, connectivity, energy security and resilience. The next multiannual financial framework should enable the bloc to respond while maintaining funding for cohesion and the Common Agricultural Policy, the leaders wrote.

They said the European Commission’s proposal would reduce funding for those areas in real terms, despite an overall increase in the future EU budget. New priorities should receive additional resources, they argued, while funding for agriculture and cohesion is preserved. The leaders also said they were ready to work constructively on new EU own resources to ease direct pressure on national budgets.

The signatories said the Cohesion Policy and Common Agricultural Policy remain important for promoting convergence, strengthening the single market and European competitiveness, and ensuring food security. They urged Ireland to take their position into account when preparing the next negotiating document and said they were ready to work towards an ambitious, balanced and adequately funded budget.

The other signatories are the leaders of Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Croatia, Latvia, Poland, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary.