The road to the next Multiannual Financial Framework

Key points

The EESC

• underlines the strategic importance of the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) at a crucial time, with an unprecedented convergence of crises, creating acute tensions between the EU’s strategic objectives and its budget’s size and allocation;
• points out the necessity to ensure that the MFF remains strong and ambitious, This requires not merely incremental adjustments but a fundamental reconceptualisation of the EU budget as an investment vehicle able to convey its priorities and deliver European public goods;
• calls for a significant increase of the MFF in real terms in order to address the huge challenges faced by the EU. In addition, the mechanism to adjust the MFF to inflation, which has traditionally capped the annual increase in contributions to the budget at 2% should change to preserve the real spending power of the MFF;
• suggests a simplification of the current rules, as well as streamlining the current coexistence of too many programmes with overlapping objectives, which cause significant bureaucracy for public administrations, civil society and companies;
• suggests progressively moving away from the current predominant model of strictly linking financing with expenditure towards a new model based on the expected performance and impact of programmes;
• encourages a rethinking of the approach to Europe’s defence policy within the MFF;
• deems it important that the new MFF fully consider the issue of European Public Goods and the role they can play in the future of the EU and its social cohesion;
• calls for the Innovation Fund to be financed with more resources;
• calls for a co-financing element to be introduced in the next MFF for important projects of common European interest to promote industrial development across the EU for all Member States;
• considers that resources for research and development (Horizon Europe) and transport and energy interconnections (TEN-T and TEN-E) must be enhanced;
• acknowledges that joint EU debt issuance was pioneered successfully as an innovative instrument during the pandemic and could be repeated in order to finance the sustainable competitiveness and resilience of the single market in the future;
• stresses the importance of duly supporting the common agricultural policy within the new MFF to ensure food security and quality, as well as viable farm incomes, in the interest of both EU society and farmers;
• urges the EU to adopt water as a strategic priority in the next MFF. A Blue Transition Fund should be established;
• underlines that the successful implementation of the next MFF will require a fundamentally different approach to performance and accountability, building on lessons learned from both traditional programmes and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). Performance-based funding must be accompanied by adequate administrative capacity and meaningful stakeholder involvement;
• stresses the need to implement the comprehensive package on the next generation of own resources presented in 2021 and adjusted in 2023 by the European Commission and joins the request of the Commission to call on the Council ‘to resume work on the issue of new own resources as a matter of urgency.