04/12/2025 (Agence Europe) – On Thursday 4 December, Christina Rafti, the Cypriot Ambassador to the European Union, whose country will hold the Presidency of the EU Council from January, explained that Cyprus wanted a negotiating framework (‘negotiating box’) with figures for the European Council at the end of June 2026. “We will work on all three pillars of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) - the National and Regional Partnership Plans, the Competitiveness Fund and the Global Europe Fund - and our ambition is to adopt a general approach, even if only partial, to at least two of them. We want to maintain our ambition to present figures at the June meeting, and I don’t think we have any other choice. It’s the only way forward,” she explained when presenting the priorities of her country’s EU Council Presidency to the EPC. The Cyprus Presidency wants a political agreement by the end of 2026. (CG)