Designing the EU budget together
The European Commission has launched a public consultation, inviting citizens and stakeholders to share their views on the future of the European Union’s long-term budget and the policies it should support. The consultation, which runs from 12 February to 6 May 2025, aims to gather input ahead of the Commission’s formal proposal for the 2028-2034 multiannual financial framework (MFF), due to be presented in July 2025.
Take part in the public consultation exercise on EU funding for cross-border education, training and solidarity, young people, media, culture, and creative sectors, values, and civil society before 6 May 2025. The decision to cluster issues serves to support the preparatory work and does not pre-empt the architecture of future programmes.
Since 1988, the EU has been functioning with long-term budgets called MFF. These provide a stable framework, with overall spending limits, to align spending with the EU’s political priorities, increase the predictability of EU finances for co-financers and beneficiaries, ensure budgetary discipline, and make it easier to adopt the annual EU budget.
The current framework, running from 1 January 2021 until 31 December 2027, has an overall expenditure of €1 211 billion. It is accompanied by NextGenerationEU, a temporary recovery instrument of up to €807 billion designed to support Europe’s economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and build a greener, more digital and more resilient future.
The next MFF will cover the period from 2028 to 2034. It is expected to focus more sharply on key EU priorities, with fewer funding programmes and simplified rules, in line with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s Political Guidelines for an ‘investment Commission’. Following consent from the European Parliament, it requires unanimous approval from all 27 EU Member States in the Council. The Commission hopes to reach an agreement in time for the new budget to take effect on 1 January 2028.
"The next long-term budget will empower our Union's shared vision for the future. It translates our common priorities into tangible action, which makes a difference for millions of citizens, businesses, regions, and researchers. Therefore, we invite all Europeans to have a say via public consultations, the citizens' panel, or the engagement platform. This is an invitation to shape a modern, ambitious, and reinforced budget. Our challenges are common objectives as well: together, we are more powerful." Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission
The Commission launched the public consultation alongside the publication of the Communication The Road to the Next Multiannual Financial Framework. This document outlines the key policy and budgetary challenges that will shape the design of the next long-term budget, from geopolitical instability to climate change and digital transformation. The consultation is part of a wider campaign to gather input from a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including national and regional governments, civil society organisations, and individual citizens.