European Economic
and Social Committee
EESC PLENARY: Civil society must be fully involved in discussions on EU long-term budget proposals
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) argues that the next multiannual financial framework (MFF) - the EU's long-term budget for the period 2028-2034 - needs to be bigger than the European Commission has proposed. The EESC also insists that civil society must be fully involved in discussions on the draft, warning that the role played by regions in managing EU funds is in danger of being watered down.
The Commission’s draft MFF, the EU’s long-term budget for 2028–2034, was presented in July 2025 and amounts to EUR 1.816 trillion. The EESC discussed the draft during its plenary session as part of the preparations for an opinion, due in January 2026 and building on the EESC’s April 2025 cohesion policy mid-term review. The Committee calls for a transparent, forward-looking and inclusive budget that fully involves regional and local authorities, social partners and civil society. Piotr Serafin, European Commissioner for Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration, Carla Tavares, Member of the European Parliament, and Professor Enrico Giovannini, former Italian Minister, currently Scientific Director of ASviS, participated in the debate. The latter joined from remote at the invitation of the EESC's Civil Society Organisations' Group.
The Commission’s proposals for the MFF take some steps in the right direction, rationalising instruments and increasing flexibility to respond to the multi-layered crises Europe faces. But flexibility must always be accompanied by robust guarantees of transparency, inclusiveness and accountability,
said EESC president Séamus Boland. Our Union can only remain resilient if those closest to the ground – regional and local actors, social partners and organised civil society – remain fully involved in shaping where and how funds are spent.
Several members of the Civil Society Organisations' Group took the floor.
Elena Calistru, president of the EESC's Section for Economic and Monetary Union and Social and Economic Cohesion (ECO), supported the ambition of a more modern MFF structure, emphasising both the need for adaptation and realism: I am glad the proposal embraces such a transformation of the MFF’s architecture. We cannot escape the fact that we need to adapt to a very changed reality. We want civil society to be part of this conversation; we should be engaged in the planning, implementation and monitoring of the MFF.
Ionuț Sibian emphasised that "a vibrant civil society is not a luxury; it is a necessity for a resilient democracy. We call for advocacy to be explicitly recognised, but we would also like to see a more explicit operational grant to be authorised across all parts of the AgoraEU Programme."
Luca Jahier, co-rapporteur for the EESC opinion on the MFF that will be presented and put to the vote in January 2026, addressed what he called the elephant in the room: the volume of the MFF
. He warned that "re-enforcing the new priorities more than needed – strategic autonomy, defence, competitiveness – will introduce consistent constraints on traditional core priorities established by the Treaties, such as the cohesion policy, common agriculture policy (CAP) and the European Social Fund".
Justyna Kalina Ochędzan underlined that the budget should be in line with the EU's values and the Treaties, and not just calculations and numbers if we want to build a resilient, inclusive and democratic society.
Read the EESC’s press release: https://www.eesc.europa.eu/en/news-media/press-releases/bolder-eu-budget-demanded-eesc-warns-against-centralisation
Watch the debate at: https://webstreaming.europarl.europa.eu/ep/embed/embed.html?event=20251203-1430-SPECIAL-OTHER