The committee clearly rejects conditions that would require Member States to undertake fundamental social and economic reform and it stresses that all conditionalities should fully respect the principles of subsidiarity and partnership. Furthermore, MEPs believe that EU regional ("cohesion") policy spending along sector-specific lines, such as climate, energy or transport, would undermine the tried and tested principle of multi-level governance and jeopardise the regions' contribution to the achievement of EU 2020 objectives.

An own-initiative report on the future of cohesion policy voted by the committee Regional Development Committee highlights that the core components of the EU 2020 strategy (innovation, education and training, energy, environment, employment, competitiveness, skills and combating poverty), already form an integral part of EU regional policy.

According MEPs, development and investment partnership funding should be subject to specific conditions, to be decided by the Commission and Member States. The committee suggests that these conditions could include a requirement to implement existing EU legislation in full (e.g. on price regulation, tendering procedures, transport, and health and the environment).

In addition, regional policy under the EU's next long-term budget (2014-2020) should get at least as much funding as it does under the present one. Anticipating a forthcoming Commission's proposal for a "common strategic framework", MEPs advocate integrating spending under the various EU "structural" funds (funding regional development and social measures) by introducing common eligibility rules for funding and allowing for multi-fund planning. However, for the next long-term budget, the committee suggests setting up an "intermediate category" of regions, so that regions with the same GDP could be treated in the same way, irrespective of their past eligibility status (today, regions that were once eligible for EU "convergence" aid still get more aid than those that were not, despite having the same GDP).

MEPs believe that the EU should support large, private firms investing in research and development, even indirectly through infrastructure financing. However, the report also calls for clear rules to prevent the EU funding the relocation of firms within the Union. They also requested for more support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the EU. Cross-border, inter-regional and trans-national co-operation efforts need to be stepped up at all EU internal borders, and to this end, the share of structural funds allocated to these efforts should be increased to 7%.