Discussions on the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) are taking shape. Invited by the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets on Wednesday 29 January, the European Commissioner for the Budget, Piotr Serafin, announced that an initial meeting on this subject would be held during the meeting of the College of Commissioners on Friday 31 January.
“We’re going to move on from the technical level to the political level”, he said, with the whole College of Commissioners now involved in the discussions. The issue will return to the agenda on 11 February, again at the College meeting, and then on 18 February in the form of an exchange with the Member States at the informal meeting of the General Affairs Council in Warsaw. The Budget Commissioner also welcomed the fact that the subject was on the agenda for the European Council on 21 March.
The Commission’s proposal is expected in July, at the start of the Danish Presidency of the EU Council. For its part, Parliament intends to present its own-initiative report in May, revealed Siegfried Mureșan (EPP, Romanian), co-rapporteur of the text with Carla Tavares (S&D, Portuguese).
On the substance, Piotr Serafin made no secret of the fact that budget cuts would be inevitable in the post-2027 MFF without the adoption of new own resources or increases in Member States’ contributions. The EU will start repaying the loan taken out for Next Generation EU (the post-Covid-19 recovery plan launched by the EU) from 2028, which “will represent a significant burden”.
Ready to engage with Member States on the issue of own resources, Piotr Serafin said he was also counting on the commitment of the Polish Presidency. Initially, the Member States will be consulted on the resources package that is still valid, as part of the ongoing interinstitutional negotiations.
Parliament adopted it in November 2023 (see EUROPE 13289/10), but the Council of the EU has not yet adopted its position on the three new own resources based on the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), as well as a new temporary statistical own resource based on corporate profits.
Apart from CBAM, “the package doesn’t suit them”, admitted Piotr Serafin, who has been encouraged by the Member States to consider new own resources. “Proposals may be made in March, at the European Council”, he hoped.
It will be necessary to confront the “lack of will on the part of the Member States” to introduce new EU own resources, Danuše Nerudova (EPP, Czech), the rapporteur on new own resources for Parliament, told Agence Europe in October 2024 (see EUROPE 13506/20).
The architecture of the next MFF will be discussed at a later date, said Piotr Serafin. The European Commissioner felt it would be difficult to go into detail without a proposal from the Commission. He said that the key elements of his mission statement and Ursula von der Leyen’s political guidelines would be followed, that links between reforms and investments would be made, a priori along the lines of the ‘Recovery and Resilience Facility’ (see EUROPE 13498/11), and that “there could be added value in reducing the number of funds”. (Original version in French by Florent Servia)