Comece: contributing to the EU multiannual budget. “Funds to those who work for the common good”

(Brussels) The next EU multiannual financial framework shall firstly “offer fair, simpler and non-discriminatory access to funds for all those players that work for the common good. They include the Churches and religious communities, major social players”. In addition, “financial resources to implement policies that place humans at the centre, unite instead of dividing, rediscover the sense of being a community that supports and helps”, should be used strategically. These are the two key guidelines that the Commission of EU Bishops Conferences (Comece) reiterated in the contributions it offered to five public consultations of the EU Commission for the development of the new financial framework. Comece also published specific directions on such issues as “values and mobility”, “cohesion”, “security”, “migration” and “investment, research, innovation, small and medium companies, and single market”. So, for instance, Comece “supports a Union of ‘principles’ and a ‘rights-based approach’, and encourages the EU to implement, in its funding schemes, the idea that human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interconnected”. It also urges to take inspiration from the European Pillar of Social Rights for “discussions and negotiations on the future financial framework” and take it as a model for the EU’s future cohesion policy, which should be made “more flexible to cope with any unforeseen developments and asymmetric shocks”.