Multiannual financial framework 2028-2034 - Timeline

  • verabschiedet on 22/01/2026 - Bureau decision date: 17/06/2025
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    ECO/682-EESC-2025-02245
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    COM(2025) 570 final
    Rapporteur
    Dominika BIEGON (GR II/DE) Konstantinos DIAMANTOUROS (GR I/GR) Luca JAHIER (GR III/IT)
    Plenary session number
    602
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    21Jan2026
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  • Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – A dynamic EU Budget for the priorities of the future – The Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034 (COM(2025) 570 final)

    EESC 2025/02245

    OJ C, C/2026/1974, 28.4.2026, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/1974/oj (BG, ES, CS, DA, DE, ET, EL, EN, FR, GA, HR, IT, LV, LT, HU, MT, NL, PL, PT, RO, SK, SL, FI, SV)

    ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/1974/oj

    Date of document:
    22/01/2026; Date of vote
    Date of vote:
    22/01/2026
    Date lodged:
    29/08/2025
    Author:
    European Economic and Social Committee
    Responsible body:
    Section for Economic and Monetary Union and Economic and Social Cohesion, EESC_ECO
    Rapporteur:
    Konstantinos DIAMANTOUROS Dominika BIEGON Luca JAHIER
    Form:
    Opinion
    Internal reference:
    ECO/682, AVIS-SECTION 2025/2245 FIN
    Session:
    602
    Treaty:
    Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
    Legal basis:
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    Earlier related instruments:
    Instruments cited:
    European flag

    Official Journal
    of the European Union

    EN

    C series

    C/2026/1974

    28.4.2026

    Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee

    Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions

    A dynamic EU Budget for the priorities of the future – The Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034

    (COM(2025) 570 final)

    (C/2026/1974)

    Rapporteur:

    Dominika BIEGON

    Rapporteur:

    Konstantinos DIAMANTOUROS

    Rapporteur:

    Luca JAHIER

    Advisors

    Anna COLOMBO (to the rapporteur Luca JAHIER)

    Sonja HENNEN (to the rapporteur Dominika BIEGON)

    Eleonora TRENTO (to the rapporteur Konstantinos DIAMANTOUROS)

    Referral

    European Commission, 29.8.2025

    Legal basis

    Article 304 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

    Section responsible

    Economic and Monetary Union and Economic and Social Cohesion

    Adopted in section

    7.1.2026

    Adopted at plenary session

    22.1.2026

    Plenary session No

    602

    Outcome of vote

    (for/against/abstentions)

    209/5/4

    1.   Conclusions and recommendations

    1.1.

    		 There are still significant investment gaps to achieving EU strategic autonomy, resilience and competitiveness and the European Pillar of Social Rights while ensuring a just decarbonisation, digital transition, security and defence. The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) warns that the Commission’s proposed marginal increase in the volume of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is inadequate and stresses the need for a substantial increase in real resources relative to gross national income (GNI).

    1.2.

    		 The EESC welcomes the Commission’s proposal for new EU own resources but calls for greater ambition to ensure a more effective budget, stressing that revenues should be linked to EU policies. While the EESC supports the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) own resources, it urges short-term support for decarbonisation of energy-intensive sectors should this be required as of 2028. The EESC expresses strong reservations regarding the proposal for a Corporate Resource for Europe (CORE) and asks the Commission to resubmit a proposal for a digital services tax instead, taking into consideration geopolitical implications. Finally, the EESC emphasises that new own resources must not undermine EU competitiveness and should maintain social and distributional balance.

    1.3.

    		 The EESC strongly opposes the proposed reduction of cohesion policy and common agricultural policy (CAP) funding in the next MFF, stressing that such cuts would undermine the effectiveness of EU policies, which have proven successful in advancing EU objectives.

    1.4.

    		 The EESC also opposes the plan to merge resources for cohesion policy, European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), CAP, fisheries, migration and security into a single fund, as currently designed, and calls on the European Commission to revise its proposal on the national and regional partnership plan (NRPP) fund and urges the Council and the European Parliament to support this position.

    1.5.

    		 The EESC calls for strengthening the partnership principle by improving the code of conduct and ensuring funding for capacity building of civil society organisations and social partners, as well as for technical assistance to beneficiaries and managing authorities. It stresses that all stakeholders must be effectively involved at every level of decision-making on the allocation of resources, strategic priorities, programmes, indicators and evaluation. The regulation on the European fund for economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and rural, fisheries and maritime, prosperity and security for the period 2028-2034 (multifund regulation) (1) is lacking mandatory mechanisms to ensure meaningful stakeholder participation and the EESC calls for a new complaint mechanism to be established in the regulation. In cases in which governments fail to involve stakeholders effectively, adequate safeguards and conditionalities must be implemented to improve participation.

    1.6.

    		 The EESC acknowledges that EU funds must be aligned within a unified vision for governance and evaluation, aimed at steering the EU decisively towards an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable and competitive model. It therefore approves of strengthening performance-based budgeting.

    1.7.

    		 The EESC opposes any form of macroeconomic conditionality in the National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs). Therefore, the requirement that NRPPs should effectively address the challenges identified in the context of the European Semester, as designed, is inadequate and needs to be clarified. The disbursement of EU funds must not be linked to unrelated structural reform proposals. Reform obligation should be related to the policy objective of the fund and should be conducive to the effective management of the fund.

    1.8.

    		 The EESC stresses that the ESF+ and the Just Transition Fund should remain stand-alone instruments in the next MFF with increased funding.

    1.9.

    		 The EESC takes note of the letter Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent to the Parliament’s President Roberta Metsola on 9 November 2025 with additional proposals by the Commission given in the annex and considers it essential to reopen and deepen the proposals on the ‘regional check’, both in terms of governance and actors involved. The EESC considers the attention towards the rural area and the proposed targets a positive step, including in light of the ‘right to stay’ underlined in the Letta report (2).

    1.10.

    		 The EESC stresses that adequate funding for civil society and media programmes (AgoraEU, CERV) is essential democratic infrastructure, not optional expenditure, given current threats to EU democracy and fundamental values.

    1.11.

    		 The EESC welcomes the strong competitiveness dimension in the next MFF, emphasising the central role of research and innovation for sustainable internal growth, strategic autonomy, water resilience and the green and digital transitions. It supports the creation of a European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) and the reinforcement of Horizon Europe with higher allocations, while noting that the ECF will mainly consolidate existing programmes and that clear governance and guidance on funding priorities are needed.

    1.12.

    		 The EESC underlines the importance of ensuring equal access to funding across Member States and company types and sizes. Therefore, it supports the Commission’s proposal to introduce a top-up mechanism for important projects of common European interest (IPCEIs).

    1.13.

    		 The EESC highlights the need for balanced allocation of money within the four policy windows of the Competitiveness Fund. It supports increased funding for the Connecting Europe Facility to strengthen transport and energy interconnections, improve connectivity and reduce energy price disparities within the EU.

    1.14.

    		 The EESC calls for EU funding under the ‘multifund regulation’ to be conditional on social criteria to be developed together with national social partners. It also welcomes the ECF Regulation’s requirement for beneficiaries to refrain from relocating abroad. To strengthen the social dimension of the ECF, the EESC proposes further incentives for companies to invest in qualification and training of their workforce or to invest in high-unemployment or industrial transition regions.

    1.15.

    		 The EESC notes that the Competitiveness Fund will be overseen by a strategic stakeholder board and insists that social partners be included to ensure balanced representation of business, labour and social perspectives in decision-making.

    1.16.

    		 The EESC welcomes the increased budget for Global Europe as crucial to strengthening the huge potential of EU external action. The EESC warns that excessive regionalisation should be balanced with a reinforced ‘Global Gateway’ perspective, a main EU instrument for promoting multilateralism, that should evolve from the current partnership to a strategic alliance, involving all the concerned players.

    1.17.

    		 The EESC stresses the need to ensure the utmost consistency between external policies, trade and the ECF through a strategic and coherent approach. At the same time, the EESC underlines the need to reinforce prosperity and security with our neighbours and give a fresh and consistent push to enlargement.

    2.   General comments

    2.1.

    		 The EU is facing an unprecedented set of social, environmental, demographic and technological challenges, unfolding against the backdrop of a profound crisis of multilateralism. These developments highlight the urgent need to strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy for a truly sustainable future.

    2.2.

    		 The EESC underscores the political goal of a just decarbonisation, the digital transition and European security and defence, making it necessary to increase investments. Recent reports commissioned by the European institutions (Draghi, Letta, Niinistö) underline these shortcomings, highlighting the urgent need for greater and more flexible fiscal capacity under the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to address both immediate and long-term challenges.

    2.3.

    		 What is more, the EU budget must reconcile competing financial pressures: the NextGenerationEU recovery instrument expires in 2026, pandemic-related debt repayments of around EUR 25 billion per year are due, the need to preserve traditional priorities (e.g. cohesion and CAP), and new priorities such as competitiveness, economic resilience, defence and security require adequate funding. The MFF, fund design and State aid rules should be closely aligned with one another to ensure stability and overall consistency.

    2.4.

    		 These needs are not adequately reflected in the marginal MFF increase proposed by the Commission. Although the proposed EUR 2 trillion volume represents a notable nominal increase, most of the increase will be absorbed by inflation adjustments and the repayment of NextGenerationEU bonds. The EESC therefore reiterates that the next MFF must not only maintain, but also substantially increase, real resources relative to GNI (3).

    2.5.

    		 The EESC laments the overall lack of consideration given to European Public Goods (EPGs) in the MFF proposal, which – by definition – are extremely difficult to sustain if they are financed, promoted and protected solely at national level. In line with the objectives laid down in Article 3 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) – it is vital to ensure there be adequate, more consistent investment in EPGs at EU level, to generate economies of scale, positive externalities and genuine EU added value in order to protect, adapt and transform the EU’s economic, social, human and ecological capital so it is in a position to cope with current and future challenges (4).

    2.6.

    		 Without the introduction of new EU-level revenue sources, including instruments based on common debt issuance, the Union will lack the financial means to deliver on its strategic objectives. Beyond providing the necessary funding, such instruments would demonstrate the EU’s collective strength and confidence in its future economic and social capabilities and could serve as a safe asset on financial markets, as repeatedly recommended by Mario Draghi. Against this background, the EESC renews its call for the establishment of an EU investment fund for economic resilience and sustainable competitiveness (5) as part of the next MFF. Such a fund should provide financial resources for investment projects of strategic European interest.

    2.7.

    		 At the same time the EESC welcomes the proposal by the European Commission to establish new loan instruments in the next MFF, i.e. Catalyst Europe and the Crisis Response Mechanism (6). If well designed, loan instruments can significantly increase the fiscal space for Member States to implement growth-enhancing investments. The example of the SAFE (7) loans shows that in order to be attractive for Member States these loans should be privileged in the EU fiscal framework (i.e. they should be exempt in the calculation of the allowed net expenditure path and the safeguards laid down in Article 7 and 8 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1263 of the European Parliament and of the Council (8)) provided that debt sustainability is not compromised. The EESC asks the European Commission and co-legislators to provide more information and clarification on these loan instruments and to design them in a way that makes them fiscally attractive for Member States.

    2.8.

    		 While the EESC welcomes the Commission’s proposal for new EU own resources as well as the increased ceiling, it believes that the EU needs to be more ambitious in order to secure a more effective EU budget. New own resources should in principle be based on revenues linked to EU policies. While the EESC supports the ETS/CBAM proposal, it urges policymakers to ensure that, should energy-intensive sectors be faced with pressure due to high energy costs, they will receive the necessary support in the short term to decarbonise and maintain their operations until energy prices fall.

    2.9.

    		 Moreover, the EESC expresses strong reservations about the CORE (9) proposal: firstly, because it is based on turnover instead of profits; and secondly because it is a flat-rate levy, which is regressive. It therefore recommends that the Commission re-submit a proposal for a digital services tax instead, as initially planned, taking into consideration geopolitical implications.

    2.10.

    		 Last but not least, and more generally, the EESC believes that the introduction of new own resources should not undermine the competitiveness of the EU’s economy, which is already under strain, especially at a time when the EU is beginning to take steps to restore the EU’s attractiveness as a business destination. At the same time, the EESC points out that social and distributional balance must be maintained and improved, and warns against putting further pressure on low and middle-income earners.

    2.11.

    		 The EESC appreciates the move towards a more focused MFF. It points out that simplification does not mean putting all the existing rules in one single document, but instead entails genuine simplification of guidelines, control systems, and burdens on beneficiaries, while ensuring that appropriate checks and balances are in place to prevent fraud and misuse for the benefit of all beneficiaries and social and environmental standards are not impeded. Simplification and rationalisation must not exclusively benefit the Commission and the Member States while additional administrative burdens fall on regional and local levels.

    2.12.

    		 The EESC welcomes the EU’s intention to enhance flexibility in the new budget. In the past, insufficient flexibility has often meant that programmes, most notably the cohesion funds, have been repurposed as crisis instruments, preventing them from fully delivering on their core task. Any decision to transfer funds should be subject to democratic oversight. The EESC requests that the European Parliament be involved in approving any fund transfers and that national and local authorities, social partners and CSOs – particularly those directly affected – provide their consent, e.g. through relevant monitoring committees, before any changes are implemented.

    2.13.

    		 The EESC reiterates its belief that a mainstreaming approach in the next MFF is central to achieving the desired longer-term results and impact on society that are set out in the Commission’s guidelines. It welcomes the inclusion of gender equality as a horizontal conditionality but regrets that, unlike climate, no binding spending targets have been set. The Committee therefore renews its call for the systematic application of gender budgeting in the MFF, where appropriate.

    2.14.

    		 The EESC highlights that the MFF sets long-term strategic priorities that have profound intergenerational implications. To achieve sustainability and fairness across generations, the EESC therefore encourages the introduction of an intergenerational budgeting approach that would foster better awareness of how resources are allocated by EU, national and local financial programming to the different generations (10).

    2.15.

    		 Recognising the urgent need to foster water resilience in all areas of society, the EESC reiterates its call to adopt water as a strategic priority in the MFF and urges the EU to adopt the sustainable use of water and water conditionality as criteria in all EU funds. Furthermore, the EESC renews its call to establish a Blue Transition Fund as a single EU access point for water investments, combining public investment with innovative financing (11).

    2.16.

    		 The EESC supports the proposal to redirect funds withdrawn due to persistent violations of the rule of law or the Charter of Fundamental Rights to programmes under direct or indirect management, ensuring that EU resources continue to serve their intended purpose and strengthening the EU’s role as a guardian of democratic values.

    3.   Heading 1: The ‘multifund’ with National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs)

    3.1.

    		 Cohesion policy has long demonstrated its role as the EU’s central instrument for promoting a resilient, competitive internal market, balanced regional development and shared prosperity. Similarly, the European Social Fund+ has proven indispensable for investing in people, developing a highly skilled workforce, fostering productivity and innovation, and reinforcing the European social market economy. While the effectiveness of cohesion can be improved, it has contributed meaningfully to economic development in less developed regions and to modernised infrastructure and innovation and is therefore a driving force for increasing the competitiveness of the EU economy (12).

    3.2.

    		 The EESC further stresses that a strong, effective cohesion policy can also play a vital role in countering growing political polarisation and fostering greater public support for the European Union.

    3.3.

    		 It therefore firmly rejects the proposed reduction in cohesion policy funding – and in common agricultural policy (CAP) funding – in the next MFF. Instead, the EESC calls for increased allocations, which could be partially supported by converting the proposed Catalyst Europe scheme from a loan facility into a grant-based instrument.

    3.4.

    		 The EESC opposes the proposal to merge the resources earmarked for cohesion policy, ESF+, the CAP, fisheries, migration and security into one single fund, as currently designed. It considers that such a structural modification might fuel distributional conflicts with cohesion, social and rural development objectives potentially being crowded out by short-term security and migration priorities. This will weaken final beneficiaries, social partners and civil society actors who depend on planning security and stable funding structures. Therefore, the EESC supports an in-depth and structural revision of the architecture of the multifund that secures the predictability and the autonomy of core spending programmes.

    3.5.

    		 Effective involvement of and participation by all stakeholders must be ensured – at all levels – in decision-making about strategic priorities, programmes, indicators and the evaluation of results. In the EESC’s view, the multifund regulation does not establish proper and mandatory mechanisms for effective involvement of stakeholders. A complaint mechanism for stakeholders should be established. In cases in which governments fail to involve stakeholders effectively, adequate conditionalities and safeguards must be implemented to improve participation.

    3.6.

    		 The EESC urges the co-legislators to amend the proposal in such a way that the effective and actual application of the partnership principle is strengthened – horizontally through the coordination of programmes, players and instruments; vertically according to the subsidiarity principle; and territorially with regional and local players, social partners and wider civil society, in line with a place-based approach. For this purpose the current code of conduct on partnerships needs to be improved. All the mentioned stakeholders should play a key role in monitoring committees. In addition, funding must be guaranteed for capacity building and technical assistance.

    3.7.

    		 The EESC welcomes the performance-based approach that has been announced – something that it has itself already called for in previous opinions (13). National budgets and EU funds must be part of an integrated vision for steering and evaluation, centred on a decisive shift towards an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable and competitive model for the entire EU.

    3.8.

    		 It points out that cohesion policy in the current MFF is the instrument with the highest share of performance-based budgeting. To make the system more effective, the EESC calls on the Commission to adopt the set of wellbeing indicators proposed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in its recent ‘Measuring sustainable and inclusive wellbeing: a multidimensional dashboard approach’ initiative (14).

    3.9.

    		 In line with the European Court of Auditors (15), the Committee points out that that a solely milestone-based disbursement, retained from experience with the on-going Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), could lead to an emphasis on procedural compliance rather than on actual and structural results. The indicators measuring performance must clearly be linked to the policy objectives defined in the regulation of the funds and should be included ex-ante in the design of the NRPPs.

    3.10.

    		 The EESC notes that the requirements for the NRPPs as specified in Article 20 of the regulation are too manifold and complex and asks co-legislators to revise the list of requirements and to be more focused in order to effectively monitor performance and outcomes of the fund.

    3.11.

    		 The announced links between the European Semester, Competitiveness Coordination Tool and the proposed future MFF need in-depth analysis. The EESC urges the European Commission to make a concrete proposal as soon as possible to enable stakeholders to fully understand the future governance of EU budgetary policy. In this context, the EESC stresses that an overall balance of policy objectives must be achieved.

    3.12.

    		 The EESC opposes any form of macroeconomic conditionality in NRPPs. Therefore, the Committee particularly criticises the requirement that NRPPs should ‘effectively address all or a significant subset of challenges identified in the context of the European Semester’ (Article 22(2)(b)(i)). The disbursement of EU funds must not be linked to unrelated structural reform proposals. However, the ex-ante positive conditionality, which ensures cohesion policy’s inherent inequality-reducing results, must be strengthened in line with the Commission’s 2024-2029 political guidelines (16).

    3.13.

    		 Therefore, for the EESC, the provision in Article 20(2) in which the Commission suggests that NRPPs should be consistent with medium term fiscal structural plans (MTFSPs) under Regulation (EU) 2024/1263 is only acceptable if significant procedural improvements are established. The proper involvement of all players concerned (EU institutions, national governments, parliaments, local authorities, social partners and civil society organisations) must be ensured. The EESC has repeatedly highlighted the growing role of the European Semester as a key instrument of the EU’s economic governance and budgetary policy and has called for substantive procedural reforms (17). More concretely, the EESC calls for a new, stronger and more structured inter-institutional agreement on the effective involvement of all relevant stakeholders in the EU, including those in the regions.

    3.14.

    		 The EESC maintains that the next MFF should ensure effective funding for the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights, as called for in the European Council’s conclusions of 21 July 2020. To achieve this goal, the ESF+ must be maintained as a stand-alone envelope in the future MFF, with increased funding. This is crucial as the ESF+ is the key instrument for supporting employment, education and training, as well as addressing inequalities and cost-of-living pressures, particularly for the most vulnerable. Moreover, the EESC considers the definition of social spending defined in the performance regulation too broad and calls on the Commission to amend its proposal so that current core ESF+ funding priorities such as social inclusion and qualification and training are maintained and that the role of civil society organisations and social partners is preserved.

    3.15.

    		 The EESC warns against reducing the concept of just transition to the technical idea of industrial decarbonisation, as implied by the current MFF design, including the NRPPs. The Just Transition Fund should be preserved as a stand-alone instrument with increased funding, to prevent skills shortages and ensure a fair and inclusive transition.

    3.16.

    		 The EESC suggests that the disbursement of money from the multifund regulation be conditional on social criteria as provided for in EU and national law, while taking into account the specificities of the Member States. In order to be applied, these social criteria must be developed and agreed by the national social partners and might include site retention and employment guarantees, qualification and training measures or respect for collective agreements. Different examples already exist in some Member States. Such social criteria should respect the varieties of social dialogue in the Member States and not lead to undue discrimination against certain types of companies or Member States. What is more, these social criteria should not put unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on companies. National examples have shown that linking public funding to social criteria can support the necessary transformation of the economy to one that is consistently geared towards creating and maintaining quality jobs, thus increasing acceptance of the green transition.

    3.17.

    		 The EESC stresses its concern that, in the future, only investments in less developed regions may benefit from funding. Future competitiveness requires investments in all regions. Without dedicated support for regions in transition, the proactive approach that has long defined EU cohesion policy risks being undermined. The EESC insists that the Commission must establish ring-fenced funding for all regions to ensure that every region has planning security and sustainable development prospects.

    3.18.

    		 Considering the current challenges and the EU’s political commitment to building a resilient and democratic Europe, it is crucial that this vision is clearly reflected in financial plans, with sufficient budget allocation to actions currently contained in the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) programme (with a focus on funding youth organisations/youth-specific proposals), AgoraEU, Erasmus+ and others. Similarly, the financial plans should adequately reflect the role of the ESF+ as a key instrument for promoting investment in the social sector and defending the interests and needs of various social groups, particularly the most vulnerable, such as disabled people according to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

    4.   Heading 2: The Competitiveness Dimension

    4.1.

    		 The EESC welcomes the inclusion of a strong competitiveness dimension in the next MFF, considering it an important milestone in shaping a European strategy that places Research and Innovation at the centre of growth. This approach must strengthen the EU’s sources of sustainable internal growth and build strategic autonomy, supported by targeted instruments designed to reinforce EU value chains, foster business development and innovation, and leverage private investment in water resilience and the green and digital transitions.

    4.2.

    		 The EESC supports the proposed creation of a European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) and the reinforcement of Horizon Europe, both accompanied by significantly higher financial allocations than in the current MFF; it calls on the co-legislators, in particular the Council of the EU, to uphold these ambitious funding commitments in the forthcoming negotiations.

    4.3.

    		 At the same time, the EESC is critical of the fact that the ECF primarily consolidates existing programmes and includes only limited new public resources, most of which have been transferred from elsewhere in the MFF.

    4.4.

    		 While such a fund should support all types of enterprise in the EU, from large business groups to SMEs and social economy enterprises, the EESC welcomes the fact that the Commission is taking into account the specific challenges faced by SMEs in order to support their access to EU funding.

    4.5.

    		 The EESC welcomes the Commission’s efforts to simplify competitiveness financing instruments and streamline business support, resulting in an integrated financial toolbox covering all stages of investment, from research and innovation to development and marketing. In the case of de-risking, the EESC points out that this could potentially also place a burden on public finances and therefore calls for transparency and financial soundness.

    4.6.

    		 It likewise welcomes the synergy envisaged between Horizon Europe and the Competitiveness Fund, which aims to create a strategic link between research and industry. At the same time, the EESC urges the Commission to provide clearer guidance on the governance of the combined competitiveness framework, in particular with regard to funding priorities and the allocation of competences and resources.

    4.7.

    		 It supports the Commission’s proposal to introduce a top-up mechanism for Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEIs), which can help ensure it access to funding is more equal between companies across the EU, regardless of Member States’ fiscal capacity.

    4.8.

    		 In a similar fashion to the IPCEI top-up, the EESC believes that the Competitiveness Fund should include a top-up credit line to support national export credit agencies in order to ensure that companies from all EU Member States can compete on a more equal basis when investing in high-risk countries.

    4.9.

    		 The EESC notes that the Competitiveness Fund is to be overseen by a Strategic Stakeholder Board, which will provide guidance on the overall orientation of the Fund and key investment areas. The EESC urges the co-legislators to make it a requirement for social partners and civil society (respecting intergenerational balance) to be part of this advisory board’s membership, in order to ensure a balanced representation of social, labour and business perspectives in strategic decision-making.

    4.10.

    		 The EESC underlines that the Competitiveness Fund budget should be balanced across all pillars. However, there is a risk that the NATO agreement on 5 % defence spending by individual Member States – without precise criteria for resource allocation – might be a pretext for using ECF money for defence projects and procurement, rather than in other fields and sectors, such as industrial production, energy or scientific research. Furthermore, the EESC requests more information from the Commission on the political and regulatory content of the concept of a European Defence Union.

    4.11.

    		 The EESC believes that the European Commission should monitor how Competitiveness Fund resources are allocated across Member States and, if necessary, in coordination with Member States’ authorities, raise stakeholders’ awareness of relevant funding opportunities to help increase uptake.

    4.12.

    		 The EESC welcomes the increase in funding proposed for the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), particularly for transport and energy interconnections. Such interconnections are important in order to better enhance multi-modal transport connectivity within the EU (especially for countries on its periphery) and to reduce energy prices in the EU as a whole, as well as reducing differences in energy prices between Member States.

    4.13.

    		 Moreover, the EESC welcomes the fact that the ECF regulation states that recipients of ECF funding must provide retention and employment guarantees by not relocating all or part of their business to third countries for five years. To further strengthen the social dimension of the ECF, the EESC suggests that the ECF should provide incentives for companies to invest in regions with high unemployment or in regions in industrial transition or incentives to invest in training and qualification for employees.

    4.14.

    		 The EESC calls on the Commission to include in Heading 2 a clear focus on youth digital skills and to include a priority focus on youth mental health and wellbeing, acknowledging the youth mental health crisis, which did not feature as a catalyst for prioritisation in EU4Health.

    5.   Heading 3: Global Europe

    5.1.

    		 The EESC welcomes the consistent increase in the budget under Heading 3 as a positive step towards strengthening the EU’s external action. This increase is essential to address the challenges ahead, enabling the EU to: affirm its role as a global player; foster multilateralism, dialogue and peace; diversify its import and export markets; support territories and businesses in these efforts; boost its sources of sustainable internal growth; and build strategic autonomy in foreign policy, diplomacy, security and defence.

    5.2.

    		 EESC strongly believes that the Global Gateway should become Global Europe’s main instrument for a ‘multilateral Europe’, capable of revitalising the United Nations, its bodies and its agencies. Moreover, in response to the significant cuts and restructuring at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Europe should seize the opportunity and play a leading role in maintaining global development and humanitarian efforts, stressing its reliability as a partner. The EESC warns that an excessive focus on regionalisation could hamper such global strategic orientations. On the contrary, the Global Gateway should become a catalyst for moving from the current partnerships to a Strategic Alliance involving all of the players, including civil society and the social partners, in all of the countries involved, deciding together on priorities, objectives, indicators and projects.

    5.3.

    		 The EESC supports the Commission’s Inequality Marker as a valuable instrument to measure and mainstream the fight against inequalities, to ensure the effectiveness of development aid; it calls on the Commission to extend this to Global Gateway projects. To this end, it is necessary to indicate a significant percentage of projects for which both the redistributive and social impact can be assessed, including through the consultation and involvement of the territories and populations concerned.

    5.4.

    		 The EESC emphasises the need to ensure consistency between external and foreign policies, trade measures and agreements, and the European Competitiveness Fund, in order to ensure that all instruments work in concert to support the Union’s broader geopolitical and economic objectives. Such synergies would help build a coherent, strategic approach that strengthens the EU’s global position in sustainable growth and economic resilience.

    5.5.

    		 The EESC supports all efforts to reinforce prosperity and security in our neighbourhood and thus within the EU. After more than 11 years without any new members, Europe must give a strong push to the enlargement process, its most successful peace project. At the same time, it reiterates that the whole process must remain merit-based, with the overarching goal of ensuring democracy, the rule of law and fundamental values in the EU’s new members, including social and civil rights. Supporting and strengthening social partner organisations and CSOs and increasing the involvement of young people and youth organisations must be ensured.

    Brussels, 22 January 2026.

    The President

    of the European Economic and Social Committee

    Séamus BOLAND

    (1)  European Fund for economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture and rural, fisheries and maritime, prosperity and security for the period 2028-2034.

    (2)  Enrico Letta, Much more than a market (April 2024).

    (3)  Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions – The road to the next multiannual financial framework (COM(2025) 46 final) (OJ C, C/2025/3202, 2.7.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3202/oj).

    (4)  Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – European public goods: policy priority for financing the EU’s sustainability growth and facing global challenges (own-initiative opinion) (OJ C, C/2026/8, 16.1.2026, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/8/oj).

    (5)  Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – An EU investment fund for economic resilience and sustainable competitiveness (own-initiative opinion) (OJ C, C/2024/6862, 28.11.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/6862/oj).

    (6)   https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/eu-budget/long-term-eu-budget/eu-budget-2028-2034_en – almost EUR 400 billion of loans to Member States, to be triggered when severe crises hit the Union.

    (7)  Security Action for Europe (SAFE).

    (8)  Regulation (EU) 2024/1263 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2024 on the effective coordination of economic policies and on multilateral budgetary surveillance and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1466/97 (OJ L, 2024/1263, 30.4.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1263/oj).

    (9)  An annual lump-sum contribution of in-scope companies operating and selling in the EU with an annual net turnover exceeding EUR 100m (Corporate Resource for Europe/CORE).

    (10)  Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Evaluating the impact of public policies in the medium and long term through intergenerational budgeting (own-initiative opinion) (OJ C, C/2026/12, 16.1.2026, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/12/oj).

    (11)  Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Water resilience and the twin transitions: Industrial approaches addressing the relationship between water, digitalisation and decarbonisation (own-initiative opinion) (OJ C, C/2026/15, 16.1.2026, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/15/oj), Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on ‘Umbrella Opinion “A call for an EU Blue Deal”’ (own-initiative opinion) (OJ C, C/2024/878, 6.2.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/878/oj), and the renewed EU Blue Deal Declaration: https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/our-work/publications-other-work/publications/renewed-declaration-eu-blue-deal.

    (12)   Forging a sustainable future together: Cohesion Policy at its defining moment , Rodriguez-Pose, A. (2025), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2025.2552869.

    (13)  See point 1.6 in the Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions – The road to the next multiannual financial framework (COM(2025) 46 final) (OJ C, C/2025/3202, 2.7.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3202/oj), as well as points 1.3 and 1.4 in the Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – Strengthening the results orientation of post-2027 cohesion policy – challenges, risks and opportunities (exploratory opinion at the request of the Polish Presidency) (OJ C, C/2025/2018, 30.4.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/2018/oj), requested by the Polish presidency.

    (14)   https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC140456.

    (15)   Special report 26/2023: The Recovery and Resilience Facility’s performance monitoring framework, https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAPublications/SR-2023-26/SR-2023-26_EN.pdf.

    (16)   Political guidelines for the next European Commission 2024–2029, Ursula von der Leyen, 18 July 2024, https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/e6cd4328-673c-4e7a-8683-f63ffb2cf648_en?filename=Political%20Guidelines%202024-2029_EN.pdf.

    (17)  Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee – The EESC’s recommendations on the reform and investment proposals formulated as part of the 2024-2025 European Semester cycle (own-initiative opinion) (OJ C, C/2025/3194, 2.7.2025, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/3194/oj).

    ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/1974/oj

    ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

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