Reflections: European Week of Regions and Cities 2026 

A year on from my first European Week of Regions and Cities, I was back in Brussels for #EURegionsWeek 2026, which ran from 12 to 14 October under the banner Strong Regions, Strong Europe.

Last year I was very much the new boy, finding my feet. This year, I arrived with a little more understanding, a few more familiar faces, and a clearer sense of what I wanted to learn.

On Monday 12 October, RSA Europe ran a workshop with EURADA and the OECD entitled ‘Aligning Cohesion Policy with the New Industrial Competitiveness Agenda for Balanced Growth and Stronger Strategic Resilience’. Moderated by Alison Hunter, the session brought together Professor David Bailey (University of Birmingham), Professor Simona Iammarino (Gran Sasso Science Institute & LSE), Dorothée Allain-Dupré (OECD) and Francesco Molica (EURADA).

We had around 140 people registered. Then Brussels did what Brussels sometimes does: a transport strike that day kept many away. Still, around 50 people made it, and they were rewarded with a lively discussion.

Personally, I gained a lot from the session and I would like to share what I learnt:

From David Bailey: EU industrial policy has become far more interventionist, pushed along by geopolitics, competitiveness worries and climate pressures. But it creates winners and losers across territories. Cohesion Policy exists to deal with such uneven development. So, as I heard others put it, we need to remember that industrial policy (competitiveness) and cohesion are two sides of the same coin. As one speaker put it, we need to ask: industrial policy for what, for whom, and at what cost?

Some key events have pushed industrial policy back towards the centre: COVID supply shocks, the war in Ukraine, dependence on China, and the green and digital transitions have increased focus on industrial policy and competitiveness across Europe, including issues such as coordinating investment and developing skills and infrastructure. Tensions arise because national missions can meet national targets while widening regional gaps, for example, if money flows to places that are already strong. The proposed defence and space budget for 2028–34 may further concentrate spending toward existing industrial hubs. And “Made in Europe” rules could disrupt supply chains that run beyond the EU, such as UK and Turkish automotive suppliers. Northvolt’s collapse was cited as a warning about poor coordination between regional, national and EU levels.

Simona Iammarino moved us on to regional development traps. Presenting updated research that clearly made clear to me the complexity of dealing with economic disparities across a large and diverse Europe: previous work on development traps had illustrated how less developed regions can be caught in a trap. Her latest research shows that now the risk of being stuck in a development trap is highest in richer regions, not the poorest. The research shows that nearly three-quarters of trapped regions sit above the EU income threshold. Poorer regions are held back by scarcity, with unemployment the main marker; richer ones are held back by underused resources, with youth inactivity the main marker (and if that is the case, then the UK, where I live, with persistently high youth unemployment, is not in a good place). Cohesion Policy has worked for poorer regions (and we shouldn’t forget that!), but because it is allocated by income, these struggling richer regions can miss out. And often the real problem in these regions is institutional capacity, not money.

Dorothée Allain-Dupré from the OECD put it in a wider context. Inequality between OECD countries is falling, but inequality within them is creeping up. Regions with below-average GDP generated about half of OECD growth, so they are central to competitiveness, not a side issue. Industrial policy support rose from 1.34% to 1.55% of GDP between 2019 and 2023, yet only around 10% of it is place-based. With subnational governments delivering 55% of public investment, they are essential partners. Her conclusion: cohesion and competitiveness are an efficiency question as much as an equity one (back to the two sides of the same coin).

The final contribution, from Francesco Molina of EURADA, looked ahead to 2028–34: smaller budgets, more national flexibility, merged funds with less ringfenced budgets give national governments freedom to move money around, for example towards defence or their own national priorities. A likely result is that funding will flow to regions with stronger absorption capacity, as has happened with Horizon. Smart specialisation, described as the quintessential place-based industrial strategy, is no longer legally required, which risks fragmentation. The realistic message was that Cohesion Policy can keep building the conditions that make other investment work, but it is a small share of public spending and cannot fix industrial policy’s uneven effects on its own.

So, the session gave me a lot to ponder as I met with other EWRC delegates. I also had a few simple questions: what’s worrying you, why are you here, and what do you hope to get out of it? And I also wanted to pitch an idea for a series of RSAE workshops focusing on the European University Alliance to gauge their reaction and potential level of interest.

So I spent a good deal of my time meeting as many people as I could, from regional representatives’ offices, a regional mayor and representatives of local governments.

The event was smaller than last year, with fewer areas set aside as mixing zones, with people simply moving from one session to the next, so it was a challenge to both find people to speak with and then to get them to stop to talk with me. A journalist from Ireland I got chatting to suggested I approach it the way he might: ask straightforward questions and promise anonymity. And so, I did. With less chit-chat, I just dived straight in with my questions, promised not to take up more than a couple of minutes of their time, and that I wouldn’t quote them directly. And it worked.

What follows is a summary of what they told me:

Q1: What’s the biggest worry right now? The most common worry was cuts to the Cohesion Policy budget, and then how it is controlled. The message was that it must stay ring-fenced and cover all categories of regions, or we end up with a two-speed Europe. Several felt the budget is simply too small to cover security and competitiveness, and that defence, migration and strategic autonomy risk crowding out territorial development. People also worried about merging cohesion, agriculture and other funds into a single National and Regional Partnership Plan (NRPP) fund, especially smaller regions. One person whose region had run a project integrating displaced migrants said access to cohesion funding was vital to that kind of work.

Other concerns were more specific. Small municipalities still find EU funds, especially climate funds, too complex to access, even though climate action happens locally. Rural, sparsely populated and ageing areas want dedicated funding. Border regions want a say in security and crisis planning, since national crises land on their desks. And some sensed growing pressure from capitals and big cities demanding a larger share.

Q2: What if the MFF is devolved to national level as currently planned? The people I met expected that, without legally binding mechanisms to keep them in national planning discussions and without a route back to the Commission if regional needs are ignored, national plans would simply bypass them. People from rural regions and cities shared this view, saying funding would take longer to reach them and that they would have less control over how the funds were allocated. Simply put, less control meant less ability to respond to a region’s or city’s unique challenges and wider context. Simplification is welcome if national and regional responsibilities are clearly separated, local impact is recognised, and there is a route back to the Commission if things don’t work out.

One interviewee gave me a concrete example: a community-led rural revitalisation project in a depopulating part of Central and Eastern Europe, covering sustainable farming, rural tourism, digital inclusion and climate adaptation. Under a single fund and without safeguards:

• There is a real risk that there will be mid-programme shifts towards defence, or crisis response, that strand multi-year work (such as the energy cooperative they are developing);

• Or that national planners simply favour big infrastructure over small rural projects;

• And this means their community-led funding could shrink or disappear entirely;

Q3: Is the expansion of the European University Alliances useful for your region, and do you know how this might be beneficial? The answers here were mixed. In principle, yes: alliances link universities, businesses and public authorities, which can strengthen regional innovation, support SMEs and start-ups and hopefully help retain and attract talent.  Developing short courses (rather than just degrees) should help close skills gaps and meet local challenges. Some recognised the opportunity to work with their EUA to strengthen cross-border cooperation.

But many said, “I don’t know”. Several people said they hadn’t been involved at all and didn’t know what role they had in shaping or accessing alliances. Others expected big urban universities to dominate and wondered whether smaller universities have the administrative capacity to work with them. The overall feeling was “maybe”.

Final reflections

My corridor conversations largely reflected what I’d heard in the RSAE session, and what I’d learnt during my previous visits to Brussels. Research clearly shows that a place-blind industrial policy will widen gaps. In the corridors, people living with those gaps said much the same: don’t leave us out. Don’t make it harder to take part.

There is familiar tension, one I noticed at the Committee of the Regions dialogue last year. Simplification isn’t a problem. Unless it means less regional influence at a national level. This year, there seemed to be much higher levels of uncertainty. Perhaps they are preparing for the worst.