Committee on Culture and Education Ordinary meeting
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CULT European Parliament
Follow its sittingsDiana Riba i Giner
Thank you very much.
Indeed, for that presentation. Moving on, I'll give the floor to the Budge and Conte co-rapporteurs. We'll start with Mister Germain. You have the floor for five minutes, sir.
Jean-Marc Germain
Thank you, chair. I will speak in French. Thank.
You, Archie, for this invitation. Thank you for inviting us to the call committee. It's a very important point in time because the regulation is important that we've just heard. It's not just an exercise in coming up with statistics, but it has to do with the whole functioning as designed by the commission. And, obviously, we are a little critical.
Nobody will be surprised. Well, those that follow budgets, when it comes to the payment modes for European aid, depending on the different programs, the costs, where you have objectives, not necessarily the final, the end objectives, but intermediary objects, outputs, and not outcomes. And this has an ex limited list that member states will have to use to be able to justify the payment of aid. Number of people, for example, who are going to be trained for any specific program, they will get a specific amount of money every single person. So when you think about that, I don't think that really, I don't think we have the same vision.
You know, statistics, that's an interesting debate as to what we want to have. And as we know today, the NLP regulation very clearly says, the performance regulation also very clearly says that, you know, there's a majority, voices they're saying that's all that the payment should be based on. So commission, looking at the final users, the beneficiaries, well, they want the statistics to be able to come up with similar indicators when it comes to the outputs. When it comes to what we've done with Niklas Herrabst, we've tried to base ourselves on the work done by the different committees, the opinion-giving rapporteurs. And I think your committee, you'll be doing that as well at the end of all your work.
Given the very important nature of this regulation, because this will underlie the European aid system. I think it's very important that the indicators chosen, and this is the second block, as mentioned by the commission, that they be relevant for what you're doing in your committee and the programs you have in your remit. And, obviously, the timeline, a lot of delays looking towards the end of the year. And then thirdly, for my specific group, the S and D, and I'm talking on behalf of the S and D because, you know, we are listening at this point in time for our committees and groups. We are trying to move towards each other.
And when you've heard both of us, you'll realize that there's a lot of work still to be done. Our priorities are, one, have a tool that is actually useful for implementing action, these systems, but also the statistical tables. And this is the first block where the objectives, well, if the objectives are reached, you can't just say 25 of expenditure has been used for working against climate change, but that the institutions have to be obliged to take action to targets that haven't been reached. That's the most important point for us. If it's just a simple, statistical exercise, well, then I think Eurostat or any sort of other institution could have done it.
Second key point for us, this is for the SMD, I mean. Well, we don't have this in current legislation, but we would like conditionality, social conditionality, and a specific follow-up mechanism for all social expenditure. Thirdly, we want to strengthen the gender mainstreaming principle and also have a think about another principle. No do no significant harm, DNSH. And what about do not do any harm to gender equality?
I think that's an important point. We could ban stop any help aid that would have a negative impact on gender mainstreaming, gender equality. Fourthly, when it comes to deletion, well, the deletion of the fourth condition, when it comes to the environmental side of things. We've basically got there under the current mandate and biodiversity. We haven't got to that at all.
Fifth point, and I think this will be a difficult one. I think a very differing starting point. I think we need to strengthen the principle of do no significant harm. You know, it's quite a recent principle. It was there up until 2024.
The text is proposing that the commission issue recommendations here. I mean, you have to apply them as well because in each sector, I mean, if you look at what would happen in each sector, well, recently, we've had debates as to how you'd apply this when it comes to the defense industry sector. Sixth, looking at the performance systems and how this can help with thematic objectives. There's an oceans pact. I think there should be an annex looking at the follow-up to all of the expenditure when it comes to the oceans.
Commission didn't want to have an oceans fund, so there has to be some sort of system to specifically follow-up on what money is being spent. That doesn't mean you have to have a cross cutting principle brought in. I, how this links up to defense programs or space programs. But this sort of system, we call this, we have this in France. I think that might be brought in, for example, in the health sector.
That's gonna be an important access for union work. Obviously, for culture, this would allow you to have a more overall view, and not just be based on specific studies from institutes. I think you'd have a more systematic overview when it comes to looking at the sort of action. And then finally, I think I've gone beyond my time. We haven't decided yet, but we're looking at a more specific approach when it comes to the annotation, the three levels, 40% for social or climate.
There are problems there, I think, when it comes to direct aid to the farmers. Automatic 40% for the environment, that's going to be a problem, I think. And also make sure there is comparability between national plans through these indicators and, obviously, strengthen your parliament's role, our role. So those are the points we're looking at in the debate. But the first point I raised, we are basically here to listen to you and to have you feed into what we're doing so that the whole exercise, which obviously is an important one, be relevant for everybody.
Thank you.
Diana Riba i Giner
Thank you very much, Mr. Germain. Now let me give the floor to Mr. Herbst. You have the floor for 5 minutes. But you can go on longer if you need to.
Niclas Herbst
By the way, it feels a bit like sitting in front of a jury here down there, but I didn't do anything wrong. I can assure you. Nevertheless, thank you very much for inviting us. I do not want to repeat the general overview that my colleague gave you, but I would like to stress that this is a highly important and very political file. And therefore, thank you for inviting us.
If I understood correctly, Kolt is not going to deliver an opinion or has not decided about that yet. But again, we are here to listen to the priorities in order to try to integrate them into our draft, as my colleague explained. And it's important that we find the adequate indicators to measure the performance of programs like Erasmus or Agora, which are very important parts of our budget. So in any case, if KULT should not deliver an opinion based on the agreement at COP level, the performance regulation would have to adapt its annex to reflect its indicators of priorities for financing identified in the financing programs, which Kult will decide on. So in Badge Kont, we are still in the process and the stages where we are consulting the specialized committees and also the relevant stakeholders, by the way, before starting the drafting of the draft report.
And it's safe to say that the performance regulation is the most horizontal file of the MFF file itself. So this is because of the overarching implications that the file could have on all the financing programs. And this is also why we need to get it right. And we need to get it right in order to ensure that EU's financing priorities are adequately tracked in the next MFF in terms of spending, of course, but also in order to ensure that the objective of ensuring that we simplify procedures for the final beneficiaries, and really the final beneficiaries, not the commission, especially for our cultural and creative sectors, our civil society organizations, and all the other stakeholders, so they can tap in the potential of the EU budget without useless bureaucracy already. So the performance regulation is a very complex file, which involves many committees in the European Parliament.
In fact, only the NRPP file involves more committees. That doesn't make it much easier for us. Nevertheless, this is why we're here to listen to you, because on many issues, we will rely heavily on the opinion of the specialized committees. And in the end, we'll need to strike a balance to ensure that such a business will be in line with the overarching objectives I mentioned of the European Union, to achieve more competitiveness, more jobs, more strategic autonomy, and so on. So personally, as you've seen, we do approach this issue from different perspectives.
So I will not speak for my co-operator, but personally, I'm concerned that the commission's proposal does not include competitiveness. Mainstreaming without increasing the competitiveness of our economies, I do believe we will not be able to create more quality jobs. We'll not be able to sustain culture and education as we need to. So it is also important to remember that this is a horizontal regulation, and the provision should apply to a similar extent to all financing programs. It also doesn't make it much easier for us.
But for this to be possible, we need to accept that we should use a minimum common denominator that unites all programs and not set maximalistic and unrealistic targets, so which can only be achieved by some programs. So, again, we are here to listen to you and to take all your concerns into account for our draft report.
Thank.
Diana Riba i Giner
Thank you very much for that overview of the situation from the perspective of a rapporteur. Now let me give the floor to the cult committee rapporteurs. Mister Trzevskiy first is the razz, the Erasmus plus rapporteur, and then we'll hear from miss Rafobix, who is the Agora EU rapporteur.
Bogdan Andrzej Zdrojewski
Don't have much time, so I am not able to focus on the advantages and disadvantages. I'm going to use my time to focus on disadvantages and problems. This regulation is proposed, has its purpose to harmonize and monitor the expenditures and monitor them against objectives. If we look at Erasmus plus and targeted expenditures, that's some 35% should be spent, for instance, on climate protection. In case of Erasmus plus, we have quite a big problem here because we would have the following situation: students or scholars while moving to Romania, for instance, to a university.
So instead of airplane and using airplane or train, don't have to go by bike, cycle. And then we could show that climate targets are being achieved. On the other hand, I know the Erasmus plus program very well, and it has a lot of different indicators, which monitor the objectives in Annex one. We also have an important objective there: the mobility. That mobility means that you have to travel using means of transportation, which are generally not positive for the climate.
Then please note that we have an opinion of the European Court of Auditors. It already has noticed that the horizontal regulations may not be helpful for the Erasmus plus adjusting to reality. So that report shows risks. Also the scholarships grants, a good example here. From our point of view, adjusting scholarships to the cost of living where the students are staying, that means diversity and not a common denominator.
So I just indicated the two examples because what is very important for me is that the beneficiaries, that is mostly students, young people, they are not in a situation, they are not put in a situation where we have to take care of additional bureaucracy and complicated settlements. But let me just stress again, I didn't talk about advantages because I only had two minutes to talk. But there are such programs as Erasmus plus, where monitoring and harmonization may unfortunately build up some complicated structures and bureaucracy, and it would be difficult to be settled both in a broad sense as for the whole program and also for individual points and individual implementations. Thank you.
Diana Riba i Giner
Thank you very much. Now let me give the floor to Ms. Ravovic. You have time. If you need more than 2 minutes, there's no problem.
Emma Rafowicz
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Dear colleagues, the performance regulation proposal is a turning point in the way we deal with the European budgets. We used to have a performance assessment that had common indicators, or we will be able to now. So thank you very much to the commission for that presentation. These are changes that we can understand in general.
We're going to need more visibility, more transparency, a better understanding of the effects of our spending. It will also enable us to have a cross-cutting look at social issues and the other aims of the Green Deal, or gender equality issues as were mentioned today. So thank you very much to Jean-Marc Germain for his attention to these issues, as he just explained. This new approach raises new issues. If it's applied in a blanket way, it's not going to work for all sectors, particularly for those that we're responsible for here.
I'm particularly talking about the issues relating to Agora, culture, and information. It doesn't mention cultural diversity, artistic creativity, or media freedom. If you apply the same criterias everywhere, you might miss some very important points. For example, the cultural sectors encompass incapacity to fit into certain boxes. So we're going to have to be very careful that all these new indicators are not counterproductive for the sector we're in charge of and that already sometimes have a hard time fitting into the very strict conditions of our budget.
So we're going to have to bring in more nuance. We should adapt the indicators to the sector to take into account the linguistic diversity, the visibility of the European content. So we know that, and that's where the success of a European cultural policy lies. It relies on the success of an industry and the way in which European artists project beyond our borders. I'm convinced that we will find a way to have our interests meet, but you have to know that what we in culture are fighting for is European cultural sovereignty.
So I think that the performance and success indicators should take those goals into account. Thank you.
Diana Riba i Giner
Thank you very much. If I may, I'd.
Also like to contribute something to this subject. You started out talking about how important these files are, even though sometimes it seems that they're not very visible. We see how important they are when they are on the cult committee's agenda. We can see the interest we have in the results because they're very important when it comes to assessing the impact of our cult prod programs. As the coordinator said, Cult is not gonna have an opinion.
But in coordinators, we said we would send a letter with very detailed input about our expectations and what we would like to feed into the report. The way in which we do opinions has changed, so we feel that that's the best way for Colt to feed into your report. So we will send a detailed letter setting out the points that we want to stress, as our reporters have just mentioned. So how can we fit an industry that's not just economic, but that is cultural, into these criteria. And as the commission was telling us, we need to be able to set joint goals.
We need to have simplified goals as this is the mandate of the current legislature. One question that I have, maybe you can answer this now or later. I understand that monitoring is done by member states for many of these European funds. So what is going to be the role of all the other administrations? We see that the MFF is very centralized.
We're losing the Europe of regions that we want to support. We've said that in many political groups have said that. So on this file, what role are other administrations or regions going to have when it comes to assessing these programs? So it's very important that we assess these programs from the administrations that are in charge of how this money is used.
Well, I've gone off script now.
Getting back to my notes. We have some time now if you would like to add anything to any of the points that we've raised. So co-operators and then the commission. Mister German, you have the floor.
Merci. Thank.
Jean-Marc Germain
Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you very much to the two speakers for your comments, both on Erasmus Plus and Agora EU. I think you've been quite critical, frankly. And, all the conversations that we've had, whether with European organizations or with the various committees, are running into the same issue, which is it's very hard to get standardized indicators that can apply to 27 member states and that can apply to the diversity of the situations. So there are limitations to a cost-based approach because there may be a lack of effort to control those costs. But, when it comes to social subsidies, we know that all men and women are not the same.
When you talk about getting people back into work, sometimes you have to spend 1000 hours on getting somebody back into work because of their personal situation, the difficulties that they face, and it may be very easy for others. If we say, €50 per person who's given training or help, well, what will help? It means that organizations are not going to have the financial means to take people on who have greater difficulties, and therefore, our policy is going to be anti-redistributive, and it won't correct inequalities, which would be the goal of that program. In a previous hearing, somebody who's in charge of implementing the European social fund in a national government said two things. He said, firstly, with these indicators, this would be a form of social washing.
In other words, one country could take all of this spending and show that the money allocated to them within the single fund. They just have to stamp some papers and send it back to the commission and justify the funds. So that effect will be amplified by these indicators. And he was also saying that, at the very least, these indicators need to be tailor-made, in his words. In other words, take into account the variety and diversity of situations. This is what we heard from Miss Raffovich regarding cultural industries.
I don't think we'll ever get any criteria that can apply across the board and that can help projects appoint leaders in our cultural industries and oversight bodies and have somebody that we can really trust. I'm sure that in many cases, that's going to be the only solution. So this expert was telling us, and the AMPL committee proposed this in their report. They said this in most cases, it'll probably be based on cost, whereas our report said it should be based on results or activity-based targets. And this should be included in annex one of this report, apart from any exceptions, and so the costage should be exceptional too.
So I am listening very carefully to what you have been saying and the criticism and also very attentive to the letter that was sent, just to say that I think that maybe an opinion might have been more effective. But I suppose with the letter, you can do the same thing as you do with the letter. And maybe another recommendation as the subject, and I'm the rapport turning around with regard to this aspect. Both of these are related. And in the regional plans, there is an opinion, and there is this aspect of using these activity indicators.
And so using those opinions, that can bring you to an opinion on the indicators that are relative to cult on Erasmus. And, you can also talk about other activities which can't be measured by indicators. And so thank you for that first exchange of ideas, and we are very much looking forward to the work being done on this.
Niclas Herbst
As I said, we always have to bear in mind that this is a horizontal regulation, and provisions, again, should apply to all to a similar extent, at least to all financing programs. And that is a difficulty. I mean, as you've mentioned, it is extremely difficult to have indicators that really fit your purpose, to your programs. And we hear this, I can assure you, we hear this from all committees. And so that is, you know, the basic problem that we face.
And we know that from very different perspective, also from different stakeholders, from different areas, and this gives us some headache how to heal this. And, again, also, I think the question on the role of the regions is a very good one, but I'm afraid that this is a matter of the general architecture of the whole MFF and the NRPPs. So I would like to hear the answer to this question from the commission. But, of course, you can see that when you start changing structures that are basically working in this current MFF, you create, yeah, you created quite a lot of new problems. That is what we're witnessing right here when it comes to this regulation, when it comes to your approach to writing a letter instead of an opinion.
I think we need to check also with the COP what this means in order when it comes to adopting the annex to reflect the indicators and the priorities for financing. So we will check on that, but thank you very much for your concerns. And again, I can assure you, we hear this from different perspectives from every committee and all the stakeholders, and it will be quite a task to, you know, put this into a draft report.
Diana Riba i Giner
And we have Raphael. Thank.
thank you very much. Does the commission also want to add something? Yes. You have the floor.
Gaetano D'Adamo
Thank you very much. Yeah. Just very shortly, and thanks for the discussion so far. Just wanted to clarify three things. First, the performance regulation establishes a target for climate and environment expenditure for the EU budget as a whole, excluding defense and security.
And for, in Annex III, a list of programs. There is no climate and environment target for Erasmus, nor is there for Agora U exactly because of the points that we have raised. So I would like that to be clear, the expenditure target for climate and environment is therefore the national and regional plans, the competitiveness fund, the future Horizon Europe, the connecting Europe facility, and for Global Europe. The second point that is on the involvement of regions, which is indeed a very important point. And as also clarified by the commission in the proposal and in the discussions on the national and regional partnership plans, proposal regions will have to be involved in all stages, which means in the, you know, preparation, design, implementation, and monitoring of the programs.
And the last point that I wanted to make is related to performance budgeting versus the issue of moving away from financing linked to costs. These are two different things. The commission aims with this, with the overall simplification agenda under the next MFF proposal, to also simplify implementation for the beneficiaries, which means to implement in a way that moves away from cost-based implementation. That is what we call technically financing not linked to costs or simplified cost options like, for instance, unit costs or lump sums financing, etcetera. The importance of the monitoring that we are putting in place with the performance regulation is, in particular, important for the tracking of how the money has been spent and how we are achieving certain objectives, which is also what we are doing, by the way, currently with all the programs.
We publish the program performance statements annually. But the problem that we have currently is that this information is different from program to program. It is collected in different ways among programs and therefore, it makes it also difficult to aggregate to have a sort of aggregate assessment of the impact of the budget. So that is an important point to make. But that's it on my side, and thank you again.
Okay. Thank.
Diana Riba i Giner
Thank you very much. Does anybody else want to speak? We have a few more minutes. If not, we can close this point. Thank you very much.
Thank you for coming. It's been very interesting. So let's stay in touch. We'll send our letter. Thank you.
Let's start again, shall we? Second point on the agenda. This is the consideration of the draft opinion on the proposal for a regulation establishing the European fund for economic, social, and territorial cohesion, agriculture, and rural fisheries and maritime prosperity and security of the period 2028, 2034. Commission adopted their proposal on July 16. The NRP is of strategic importance for our committee, as almost half of the next MFF will be allocated to it.
And therefore, it's essential to ensure strong visibility for cult priorities and to secure the eligibility of topics falling within this committee's remit. I'd like to remind you that the deadline for tabling amendments is April 20 this year, obviously, at midday. So I'd like to remind members to please keep the scope of amendments for the opinion under the remit of the court committee's competence. And very importantly, sign your amendments in at 4 AM, and use your digital signature. And now I'll give the floor to, well, miss Jussie Princie from the EPP, and she's replacing missus Solisilva, the court reporter, and she will present the draft opinion.
Thank you very much. Thanks for being here. You have the floor.
Thank.
Giusi Princi
You, chair. I will be speaking in Italian. As you just said, I am replacing our colleague, Sosa Silva, who is the rapporteur for the court opinion. But I will be writing out her presentation. Dear colleagues, as the rapporteur for the opinion of the CULT committee on the proposed regulation setting up the for economic, social, and territorial cohesion, agriculture and rural fisheries, and maritime prosperity and security for the period 2028 to 2034.
I would like to show a highlight, a number of key concerns that I have with regard to this plan and the organization of this fund, in particular with regard to what concerns the national and regional partnerships. Our starting point is very clear. The need and the hopes for people working in these areas such as agriculture and youth and sport has to be all of this has to be sufficiently represented. These are sectors that are deeply rooted in local structures and regional structures and have a key role in strengthening social and regional cohesion. And so they require a multilevel and solid governance.
And for this reason, the regional and local authorities, as well as cultural and educational structures, have to be involved in a significant way throughout the entire process. The measures to support these people must be able to guarantee training and education that is inclusive and comprehensive, also with vocational training and inclusive training, also adult education, as well as opportunities to upgrade and update skills. This is essential not just for individual development, but also to be able to meet the needs of the labor market and various changes. I'd just like to highlight that there are some key things missing. The 14% with regard to social objectives should also explicitly include youth education, and it's also important to have more clarity with regard to some and how investments will be monitored in practice.
And so against this backdrop, we also have to have a priority for educational systems so that they're oriented towards the future, that they're working against school dropout and also the lack of teaching staff in various regions. Furthermore, what is also essential is more synergy with other EU projects, better and clearer links with the Erasmus Plus, Horizon Europe and Agora EU, which will make it possible to maximize the impact and at the same time guaranteeing transparency and avoiding overlapping. This social cohesion must also be looking at ongoing imbalances such as the cultural deserts in rural areas, investments in cultural areas and sport, as well as strengthening the role of the cultural area when it comes to regional development and tourism. Finally, what is essential as well is having a democratic aspect. We must also be pluralist and pluralistic and must include local media and minority languages.
The fourth key pillar of public debate, which should be informed and should involve civic organizations. We also stress the importance of transparency and the responsibility, because through ongoing reporting on the results and the synergies with other instruments of the EU. I am looking forward with interest to the constructive work with our colleagues so that we can later strengthen this proposal. I would also like to use this opportunity to remind you, as the chair has already said, that the deadline for the presentation of amendments is set for April 20. Thank you very much.
Diana Riba i Giner
Thank you.
Much indeed. Now I'll give the floor to the shadows present. First of all, Antonin Stanek for the PFE. Thank you very much, Cindy, for giving me the floor. Thanks, colleagues.
Antonin Stanek
First of all, let me say thank you to the rapporteur. Thanks for presenting your draft. I think it's great that in this opinion, the cult committee is going to highlight the importance of education, professional vocational training, and also cultural heritage and culture in general. These are things that really have an impact on the European regions. It's not anything abstract, I don't think.
In lots of regions, culture is part of identity, especially for tourism, and people do want to keep this in their regions. So we've looked, we've seen museums, historic monuments, renovated. We've seen cultural centers established and archives digitalized. So these sorts of projects are basically bottom up, started by local communities, and I think that shows the value that we have to be protecting. We also have to say, and we have to be honest, when it comes to this new infrastructure architecture, the NRP infrastructure, this would mean a huge change as to how European funds will work.
If these NRPs are linked to the European semester and the country recommendations, the different European priorities, which gets longer and longer, that list. We're just wondering, what about national priorities, and what about European governance of all these? I mean, we understand the social aspects, the different milestones that are conditionally included, but I don't think this is neutral. I think this is a political choice. And therefore, I think we should remember the fundamental principle here, i.e., funds have to help European regions sort of at their potential.
Speaker 16
They don't always have the same priorities in different regions, and that's what makes Europe strong. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed. Next, I'll give the floor to Christo Petrov. You have the floor, sir.
Hristo Petrov
Thank you, chair. I welcome the approach of the rapporteur on this opinion. I think the draft moves in the right direction and rightly recognizes that education and culture must have a more prominent place in the plans and in their implementation. I also welcome giving parliament a more meaningful role in following how the plans are designed and delivered. From our side, one key priority remains access, and that means better access to education, culture, and pluralistic media content, especially for those who are too often left behind, including children and young people in vulnerable situations, disadvantaged communities, and people living in rural, remote, and less-connected regions.
In education, I believe there should be a stronger focus on school education. This is particularly important because school education is very often a regional and municipal competence. So we need to ensure that local and regional actors and schools themselves are properly reflected in the design and implementation of education measures, and can be real beneficiaries of the fund. I also touch on particular importance to learning mobility. Mobility should not be treated as secondary.
It's an essential part of making education more open and inclusive, and we should make sure that the plans can support the infrastructure and the conditions that make it more regular and more accessible. Another key priority is improving access to culture, together with strong support for cultural heritage and cultural infrastructure, which I think the draft opinion addresses well. We must also make sure that the plans can support access to pluralistic and trustworthy media, especially where such access is weak or uneven. In general, we have a good basis to work on, and I look forward to working together constructively.
Thank you.
Diana Riba i Giner
Thank you very much indeed. I will now take the report, floor as a shadow. I'd like to start, if I may, just to say thank you to the rapporteur. Excellent work done to date. The draft that's been presented is a very solid basis.
It's, I think, fully explains the priorities that this committee has. So I'd just like to give you a general substantive point when it comes to culture mainstreaming, also for sports and youth. This isn't just a technical detail when it comes to the budgets. It's a political choice, a very important political choice. We'll talk about the need to invest in cohesion, resilience, in the future.
We are talking about putting money into what makes communities stronger, more prepared, i.e., culture, education, sport. Specifically, now in the report, what I'd like to highlight is the importance that we give to linguistic diversity. This is one of the key points for the committee because it does connect with the reality of a lot of Europeans. This is what we see in our various churches. In Catalonia, Catalan is a pillar of social cohesion and our culture.
And, therefore, it's important that we have monies given to the survival and the promotion of these languages, the minority languages, especially when it comes to journalism and the media. This is where diversity, these areas where diversity is key for our democracy. Our amendments, I think, will go in that direction, will emphasize the role of regions, cities, and rural areas because policies aren't abstract. They have to reflect what's happening on the ground, and we have to recognize this role so that budgets, budget from the European level, have a real, tangible impact. Also, I'd like to say that we need to insist on a specific proposal, i.e., we very much like recognizing culture as a public good, as a way of promoting cohesion, inclusion, and territorial cohesion.
That's paramount for us. But I think we need to go further, and that's why we'd like to explore having 2% earmarked for culture. I'm talking about sufficient, just talking about sufficient monies. That won't be enough. If we don't do this, I think the risk is that culture will be left behind, and that would be a strategic error.
2%, I think, is a realistic amount. It's justified, and it's what we've been asking for for quite a while. If we want culture to be part of cohesion and social and territorial cohesion, then we need to give culture the monies it needs. Thank you very much. I'll give the floor now.
Commission, if you would like the floor from the DG budget. Would you like to take the floor? You have the floor. Over to you.
Myriam Bovéda
Thank you, Missus Chair, honorable members. The discussions are taking place in several European parliament committees and commissions of services, are here today, and are following with attention all debates and the main messages emerging. The amendments proposed by the Committee on Culture and Education today reflect a broad and inclusive vision for EU funding under the next MFF 2028-2034. And we are very attentive and will remain attentive to the aspects discussed today, such as social cohesion, fair development, democratic values, lifelong learning, and the place of culture in the regions and local authorities. We are partaking in the negotiations in the council and in the parliament.
And let me mention here three key elements from our proposal that already go in your direction and for which we hope to have your full support. First, we want to ensure a sufficient budget for the national and regional partnership plans. We are proposing an instrument of €865,000,000,000, and it will have a central role in the next MFF to support economic, social, and territorial cohesion. Second, the NRP fund brings together cohesion, agriculture, social, maritime and home policies to jointly deliver national and regional partnership plans to give more flexibility both to member states, but also to regions and the beneficiaries to fully integrate priorities related to education, lifelong learning, media, integrity and culture to allow for simpler, more streamlined and harmonized EU financial programs so that citizens and companies, including in rural and marginalized areas, can easily find and access funding opportunities. This will be facilitated through a single portal, the gateway.
And third, support quality employment, skills, and social inclusion across all member states, regions, and sectors, such as the cultural sector and education. As part of the plans, the European Social Fund will contribute to promoting equal opportunities for all, support strong social safety nets, foster social inclusion, intergenerational fairness, and fight poverty. Third, I would like to mention that the rule of law will remain a cornerstone of the next MFF, and a strong condition for EU support as well as the charter of fundamental rights. When it comes to the NRP regulation, it includes additional safeguards as well as incentives to make sure the fund is used in line with the rule of law principle and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. To conclude, we highly value the engagement of the European Parliament, and we are looking forward to continuing the discussions in view of reaching an ambitious MFF agreement.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank.
Diana Riba i Giner
you much indeed. Apologies. Thank you for highlighting that. The next meeting is May 4 here in Brussels, and therefore, that is the end of this meeting. Thank you very much indeed.
The chair very kindly thanks the interpreters. Thank you also for listening. I know we read very quickly, but thank you for being here, and have a lovely day. Thank you.
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