“Let me take this opportunity to reiterate that the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is one of the top priorities of the Cyprus Presidency” of the Council of the European Union, which “has been working on all fronts since day one (...) with the aim of reaching an agreement by the end of 2026. This is the mandate we received from the European Council”, said the Cypriot Deputy Minister for European Affairs, Marilena Raouna, on Monday 11 May, at the end of an informal ministerial meeting of the EU countries’ ministers for European affairs, at which the thorny issue of the 2028-2034 MFF was once again discussed.
A few hours earlier, the French minister, Benjamin Haddad, appeared to dismiss the end of 2026 deadline out of hand. However, this deadline had been set in order to anticipate the possible impact on negotiations of a number of national elections scheduled for next year, starting with the French presidential election in May 2027.
“Our only priority is to have a good budget”, and not “to impose artificial deadlines on ourselves in order to speed up the process”, said Mr Haddad on his arrival at the meeting - which also discussed EU enlargement (see EUROPE 13866/5). “An agreement could be reached in the second half of 2027”, he maintained.
At the European summit in Nicosia on 24 April, the Croatian Prime Minister, Andrej Plenković, had already expressed doubts about the ability of the EU27 to reach agreement before the end of 2026, given the “divergent” positions expressed (see EUROPE 13856/1).
In fact, there are still deep disagreements between, on the one hand, countries such as Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, which are keen to focus a limited overall budget on “new priorities” such as competitiveness, defence and migration, and, on the other hand, countries such as France, Poland and Italy, which are looking at the bigger picture and are anxious to preserve historical spending areas (the agricultural and cohesion funds, in particular).
The Cyprus Presidency, which aims to present a negotiating box in early June, in time for the European Council on 18 and 19 June, faces an arduous task.
Crisis response. On Monday, discussions between ministers were limited to the tools for responding to future crises in the next MFF, and more generally to the flexibilities granted to Member States included in the Commission’s initial proposal. However, they were not based on consensus.
On the Polish side, the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ignacy Niemczycki, for example, was alarmed that “cohesion policy is being transformed into a new crisis management instrument”. His Spanish counterpart, Fernando Sampedro, spoke of the possibility of a more “gradual” repayment of the debt of the post-Covid-19 European recovery plan in order to give the EU more room for manoeuvre.
Mr Haddad promised to “push hard in the coming weeks” on the subject of own resources (see EUROPE 13728/20), deeming the European Parliament’s ideas on the subject “really interesting” (see EUROPE 13849/14). (Original version in French by Clément Solal)