On the eve of last Friday's ‘Friends of Cohesion Policy' meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia's prime minister, Robert Fico, set out in your newspaper (“The Cohesion policy is good for all”, 4-10 October) why the European Union's net beneficiary states want no cuts to the future multi-annual financial framework (MFF) 2014-20. Boosting jobs and growth was Fico's message, reinforced by the countries at the Bratislava meeting, but with very few concrete details and, of course, some obligatory nods to ‘better spending'.