“I think everyone agrees that, by the end of the year, we may have perhaps spent a few nights here in order to reach an agreement”, Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten said on Friday 19 June in Brussels, after the European Summit, where the next long-term European budget was discussed. The laborious debate between the Heads of State or Government in the morning at least had the merit of producing a near-consensus on the need to reach an agreement by the end of 2026, as the conclusions adopted by the European Council also emphasised. Meeting that deadline “(...) would allow for the adoption of legislative acts in 2027, which is necessary to ensure that EU funding reaches beneficiaries without interruption in January 2028”, the text states.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also considered that sticking to that timetable was “important for the predictability of the EU budget as a whole”, thus ensuring that progress on the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) in the coming months an “absolute priority”. Like Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, several leaders acknowledged that the prospect of the 2027 French Presidential election was in fact the “main factor” behind the deadline of the end of 2026 (see EUROPE 13889/2).
That objective was, however, one of the few points of convergence among the EU27, as the debate remained polarised between, on the one hand, the ‘Friends of Cohesion’ and, on the other, the ‘frugal’ countries (also known as the budget ‘modernisers’) (see EUROPE 13891/3). The latter, unsurprisingly, hammered home their opposition to the figures proposal from the Cyprus Presidency.
Ireland, which will take over the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU at the beginning of July, has already been tasked with preparing a new negotiating box for the next European Summit in October. This future 'nego box' “will have to be significantly less costly than the current one”, Friedrich Merz warned, echoing the same point made by his Dutch, Swedish and Austrian counterparts. At the same time, the German Christian Democrat repeatedly stated that it would also be necessary “to discuss EU revenue”.
The issue of new own resources, which took up a good part of Friday’s discussion among the leaders, therefore emerged as one of the knottiest parts of the upcoming negotiations. With very rare exceptions—notably Sweden, which says it sees no need for them—an overwhelming majority of member countries now acknowledge the need to reach agreement on this matter in order to help finance the post-2027 MFF. The forthcoming Irish Presidency has, moreover, been specifically called on to present “an ambitious and balanced package of new own resources” by October, a European official explained.
In the opinion of Emmanuel Macron, reaching prior agreement on such revenue even constitutes “the condition for a balanced agreement” on the budget. “As a matter of priority, there needs to be work on new own resources in order to stabilise national contributions”, the French President told the press after the meeting. For France, in fact, arbitration between the various spending headings (CAP, Cohesion, competitiveness, defence, etc.) can only take place once the budgetary margins have been clarified.
However, of the five own-resources options proposed by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13728/20, 13680/2) or the three suggested by the European Parliament (see EUROPE 13858/1), none has so far commanded a consensus.
Accordingly, “the only way to realistically reach agreement on own resources is to include them in a broader overall package, in which everyone gains on certain points and agrees to give ground on others”, a European diplomat said on Friday on the sidelines of the Summit. Germany and the Netherlands indicated their openness on the matter, merely reiterating their refusal to support the proposal for a tax levy on the turnover of large companies (CORE), which they deem harmful to competitiveness.
Still looking at the subject of fiscal leeway, the idea of rolling over part of the shared debt arising from the post-Covid-19 recovery plan—a proposal championed by France and Spain—resurfaced during the discussion. As things stand, repayment is due to begin from 2028, and the amount would come to €168 billion over the seven-year cycle.
Read the conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/mgw (Original version in French by Clément Solal)