27Secondly, so far as concerns the field of regional policy, and more specifically the proposals based, on the one hand, on Articles 177 and 178 TFEU, seeking to adapt the provisions relating to the European Union’s regional funds and, on the other hand, on Article 173(3) and Article 182(1) TFEU, with a view to amending Regulation (EU) No 1291/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 establishing Horizon 2020 – the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (2014-2020) and repealing Decision No 1982/2006/EC (OJ 2013 L 347, p. 104), Romania asserts that, in accordance with Article 174 TFEU, importance attaches to the criterion of the development of the different regions for the purposes of the cohesion policy and not the national, ethnic, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics of the regions, especially since there is no clear and generally valid link between the ethnic composition of particular regions and their level of development. It continues that an act adopted on the basis of Article 177 TFEU cannot set objectives in addition to those laid down in Article 174 TFEU. The same, it submits, applies to the ‘Horizon 2020’ programme, since the objectives of the specific measures listed in Article 173 TFEU (‘Industry’) and Article 179 TFEU (‘Research and technological development and space’) have no connection with the protection of the rights of persons belonging to national minorities. Romania adds that there is no basis, within the framework of the European Union’s competence, for adopting an act which, as in the present case, is contrary to the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU, by introducing indirect discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and which would raise the problem of exceeding the limits, established in accordance with international law, of the parent State’s involvement in the protection of its national minority located within the territory of another State.