The Friends of Cohesion group, which comprises 17 EU member states, has sent a joint letter to Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, in its capacity as head of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union, calling for agriculture and cohesion to be preserved as central priorities in the next European budget year, Romania's President Nicusor Dan announced on Saturday.

'Together with the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, we brought together 17 EU member states from the Group of 'Friends of Cohesion' around a common goal: to keep agriculture and cohesion as central priorities in the next European budget year. Thus, in view of the next stages of the negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework, I addressed a joint letter to the Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, in his capacity as head of the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union. We intend to maintain the global level of funding for the Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy, as well as to allocate additional resources to priorities of major importance, such as security and defence, competitiveness, connectivity, energy security and resilience. At the same time, we reaffirm our readiness to work constructively on new own resources, which could alleviate the pressure on national budgets,' Dan said in a social media post.

At the beginning of September, Dan told a joint news conference with the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, that Romania wants an ambitious EU budget, with consistent amounts for cohesion and agriculture.

'First of all, we want an ambitious European Union budget, we want consistent amounts for the cohesion chapter and the agriculture chapter, precisely so that we can bridge the gaps between the citizens of different European countries. We are very interested in the competitiveness pillar, here we again aim to bridge the gap between European countries and we want companies from less developed European countries, such as Romania, to be able to have access to competitiveness funds,' said the head of state regarding the future budget of the European Union 2028-2034. AGERPRES (RO - editing by: Eusebi Manolache; EN - writing by: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)