Interview with Kata Tüttő, President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR), frm. Deputy Mayor of Budapest (HUngary). 

1. You became actively involved in municipal politics in your home country in the late 1990s. What fascinates you about local and regional politics?

What fascinates me about local politics is the constant learning.  As a local leader, you stand at the interface between the experts who run public services and the citizens who experience the results in their everyday lives. Your responsibility is both to make decisions between alternative options and to explain those choices to citizens — especially in moments of crisis or when difficult trade-offs must be made. To do that, you need to understand the issues quite deeply. And that means constantly learning about things you would never imagine needing to know.

City management suddenly takes you into unexpected fields: the science of lubricants that reduce the screeching of tram rails, the difference between biological and chemical mosquito control, the problems caused by braking sand used by trams, the ecology of trees, how the daily electricity market works, how water pipes behave under pressure, or how bacteria keep a wastewater treatment plant functioning. You learn about winter road maintenance, groundwater movements under the city, and many other hidden systems that keep urban life running.

This is what fascinates me: local politics forces you to dive into the real mechanics of how a city works. It constantly reminds you that behind everyday services there is a world of expertise — and that almost nothing in city governance is as simple as it first appears.

2. You are familiar with both the local/regional level and the European level of politics. Would you say there is a trend toward centralization—at all levels, both within the EU and within nation states? After all, subsidiarity is supposed to be a fundamental principle…

Yes, there is clearly a trend towards centralisation — and in moments of crisis this is partly natural.  Emergencies create a political gravity that pulls power, attention and resources toward the centre. When societies face financial shocks, pandemics, security threats or geopolitical instability, governments naturally seek stronger coordination and faster decision-making. In such situations, centralisation can be necessary.

But good governance is not about staying in emergency mode forever.  What we are experiencing today is a succession of crises that risks turning emergency logic into a permanent state. And when power, attention and resources are constantly pulled to the centre, systems gradually lose balance. Public governance operates with limited resources — not only money, but also administrative capacity, political focus and problem-solving energy. If everything becomes centralised, those resources are quickly overstretched and decisions move further away from the realities on the ground. This is precisely why subsidiarity is such an important principle in the European Union. It is not just a legal rule; it is a principle of good governance. When some challenges require stronger central coordination, other responsibilities should move closer to citizens — to cities, regions and local authorities.

Decentralisation is not fragmentation. It is how a complex system builds resilience. By empowering different levels of government, you create reserves of knowledge, flexibility and response capacity across the system.  In the long run, governing well means constantly searching for balance. A system that only concentrates power at the centre will eventually become both inefficient and fragile. A resilient Europe is one where the centre provides direction and solidarity, while cities and regions have the space and responsibility to act.

3. Negotiations on the Multiannual Financial Framework are currently underway, and it appears that there may be changes to funding for regions. In the future, these funds are expected to go to the states or central governments rather than directly to the regions. Supporters speak of administrative simplification, but does this not risk another step toward (national) centralization?

There is a legitimate discussion about simplification. The current system can indeed be complex, and we should always look for ways to make European funds easier to manage and faster to deploy.  But simplification should not become a pretext for re-centralisation.

If funding becomes mainly channelled through national plans managed by central governments, we risk losing that territorial connection. Decisions may become more distant from the places where investments are actually implemented. At the same time, cohesion resources would start competing with other policy priorities for scarce funding, while allocation decisions at national level are often driven by strong short-term political pressures. This combination puts the very foundations of Cohesion Policy at risk.

Cohesion policy has been one of the EU’s most successful policies precisely because it connects European investment with regional realities. Cities and regions help identify needs, design projects and ensure that investments actually respond to local challenges — whether in infrastructure, innovation, energy transition or social development.  This is not only a question of institutional balance. It is also about effectiveness. Europe’s strength and resilience come from mobilising the potential of its regions — not concentrating decisions in a few capitals.

4. Which three priorities or issues would you like to advance during your term in the Committee of the Regions, or “in Brussels”?

First, defending a strong Cohesion Policy. Cohesion policy is one of the EU’s most important tools for ensuring that the major transitions we are facing — industrial transformation, climate adaptation, demographic change and digitalisation — succeed across all regions of Europe. It must remain a strong, predictable, visible and stand-alone decentralised European investment policy built on partnership with regions and cities that mobilises the potential of every region. Cohesion policy should not be dissolved into a national envelope and reduced to a short-term “charity” or emergency fund.

Second, water resilience. Across Europe we are increasingly facing droughts, floods and growing competition for water between households, agriculture, ecosystems and industry. Water is becoming a strategic resource. Cities and regions are facing enormous pressure and need strong, sustained European attention to water infrastructure, water management and climate adaptation.

And third, women’s health. I have committed to bringing more attention to the often invisible gaps that women face, particularly in areas such as health beyond reproductive age. Local and regional authorities play a key role here — from healthcare systems to public services and workplace policies.