Should the European Semester include territorial cohesion?

March 2025

To ensure the future of the EU and all its places and people, a recent ESPON report on the stocktaking review of the Territorial Agenda (Si apre in una nuova finestra) suggests strengthening the link between the cohesion objective and the European Semester.

Why should EU and national policies strengthen cohesion?

Cohesion is a core value of the European Union, enshrined in Article 3 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and Article 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU). It aims to reduce disparities between regions and create opportunities for all territories, ensuring that no place is left behind. However, despite decades of cohesion policy, regional disparities persist and new territorial challenges - such as demographic change, climate adaptation and economic transition - require a more integrated response. If cohesion is to remain a guiding principle, it must be embedded not only in cohesion policy, but in a wide range of EU and national policies that shape economic and social development. Otherwise, widening disparities risk leaving people and places behind, undermining the very foundation of the EU and fuelling fragmentation, potentially threatening European unity. The Territorial Agenda 2030 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) calls for a future for all places and all people in the EU, and provides a framework to operationalise cohesion across policies and levels of governance.

What is the European Semester?

The European Semester, introduced in 2010, is the EU's annual cycle of economic policy coordination. It provides member states with country-specific recommendations based on an assessment of their economic, fiscal and structural policies. While initially focused on macroeconomic stability, the European Semester has evolved to include broader objectives such as the green and digital transitions, social policies and investment priorities. It plays a crucial role in aligning EU and national policies, ensuring that economic governance is coherent and strategic at national and EU level. However, territorial cohesion remains largely absent from this framework, meaning that spatial disparities and the specific needs of different regions receive little attention in economic planning at EU level.

As a side note, the envisaged national plans under the future EU budget could provide an opportunity to align territorial cohesion objectives with broader investment strategies, ensuring that EU funding contributes to reducing disparities between territories (see also previous blog post (Si apre in una nuova finestra)).

Why link the European Semester and cohesion?

Cohesion policy remains the main EU instrument to address territorial disparities, but it operates separately from the economic governance framework of the European Semester. The ESPON report on the stocktaking review of the Territorial Agenda 2030 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) launched the idea of better integrating territorial cohesion into the European Semester in order to improve policy coordination and address regional disparities more effectively. Integrating territorial cohesion into the European Semester could have several benefits: