Brussels \u2013 National and regional partnerships for investment and reform, a Competitiveness Fund, and a Global Europe strategy are the pillars on which the European Commission is building the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2028\u20132034. This structure emerges from a document prepared by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin, intended to guide discussions among commissioners. It reflects the European executive\u2019s intention to merge several EU programs \u2014 including the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Cohesion Policy \u2014 into a single fund for national and regional partnerships for Investment and Reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur current budget was designed for a world that no longer exists \u2014 the world of 2020,\u201d said Ursula von der Leyen today during her 2025 EU Budget Annual Conference speech. The next budget, she emphasized, \u201cmust be less rigid\u201d and \u201cdeliver where it\u00a0matters: fast, efficiently, and with impact.”\u00a0In particular, \u201c<\/em>we need greater coherence in funding our priorities” because \u201ctoday, we dilute our spending power across too many instruments. And we do not coordinate enough between the European, the national and regional levels, the private sector and the other institutions,\u201d she stated. The agricultural sector did not welcome this streamlining project, which aims to consolidate\u00a0budget chapters. Farmers returned to the streets today in the \u201c<\/em>first pan-European mobilization in support of a CAP budget that is increased and adjusted for inflation,\u00a0<\/em>in response to growing concerns over the idea of a single fund.\u201d\u00a0Organized jointly by FWA, Boerenbond, and Copa-Cogeca in Brussels \u2014 coinciding with the European Commission\u2019s budget conference \u2014 the protest raised the alarm that \u201c<\/em>EU agriculture and food security risk collapsing like a house of cards without clarity on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget.\u201d<\/p>\n In the internal document, von der Leyen and Serafin specify that \u201cthe current long-term budget includes a series of funds pre-allocated to the Member States in areas such as cohesion policy, agriculture, climate, fisheries, and home affairs, which require national\/regional programming.\u201d\u00a0In addition, \u201c<\/em>any change or new objective requires legal amendments,\u201d<\/em> something that \u201cmakes these funds rigid\u201d and \u201cadds complexity.\u201d\u00a0Therefore, \u201c<\/em>bringing together the actions financed by these funds under national and regional partnerships for investment and reform, aligned with the EU\u2019s political objectives and priorities, would create efficiencies for beneficiaries, reduce overlaps, and significantly increase flexibility \u2014 and therefore the impact of our budget,\u201d<\/em> they write.<\/p>\n The President, however, knows she must\u00a0reassure\u00a0the agricultural sector, which is resistant to\u00a0merging programs. In her speech, she made a point to say \u201cvery clearly\u201d that \u201cIn our next Budget, there will be a central place for Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy. Modernized and better adapted to today’s challenges.” Words that, for now, do not seem to bridge the gap.\u00a0\u201cThe budget issue is far from a technical matter; it is a fundamental political priority\u00a0determining the ambition and overall coherence of European agricultural policies. Without it, the entire structure could collapse like a house of cards,\u201d said Copa President Massimiliano Giansanti during the protest.\u00a0\u201c<\/em>For this reason, we cannot accept the dissolution of the CAP into a single fund or any attempt at further re-nationalization, nor a rushed proposal for the next CAP presented in July alongside the post-2027 MFF, without clarity on available resources, governance, or adequate consultation with the sector,\u201d<\/em> he stressed.\u00a0And today\u2019s protest did not go unnoticed in Brussels: in an official statement, Copa-Cogeca noted that \u201cmany Members of the European Parliament\u201d came out \u201cto express their support for the flash action\u201d and that, on the sidelines, \u201ca meeting was held between the leadership of Copa and Cogeca and Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin,\u201d who \u201cs<\/em>howed willingness to listen and engage in deeper dialogue with representatives of European farmers and agricultural cooperatives,\u201d and \u201creassured them of his commitment to prioritizing food security and maintaining support for the sector through the Common Agricultural Policy.\u201d<\/p>\n In general, with the new MFF, Brussels aims for \u201ca better balance between predictability and flexibility in investments,\u201d even considering changes to the duration of the framework. \u201cMaintaining a seven-year horizon would be conceivable, in the current context of change, only if significantly greater flexibility could be achieved within the financial framework and its programs.” In addition to merging programs such as Cohesion and the CAP into national and regional partnerships, the Commission also aims to consolidate \u201cthe numerous programs that successfully contribute to competitiveness\u201d\u2014such as Horizon Europe, the Digital Europe Programme, the Innovation Fund, the European Defence Fund, and the EU Space Programme\u2014into a true \u201cEuropean Competitiveness Fund,\u201d providing coherent support across the entire investment journey, from research to scale-up to industrial deployment and production.\u00a0As for Global Europe<\/strong>, the Commission envisions the creation of a \u201cGlobal Europe Fund\u201d<\/strong> that \u201cwill allow for tailored responses to each region and partner country, creating comprehensive partnership packages for each geographic area.\u201d These packages will \u201cstrengthen the link between external action and internal priorities, such as energy security, the supply of critical raw materials, climate action, connectivity, migration, and defense.” They will also apply to candidate countries \u201cto accelerate their accession.\u201d<\/p>\n Finally, beyond the structure itself, there is one fixed point for the President: the need for \u201cnew sources of financing\u201d in the next multiannual budget.\u00a0\u201cWe must finance new priorities, and we must start repaying the loans raised for NextGenerationEU. It is clear that national budgets alone cannot bear the brunt of it. So we need new own resources. We already have a package of proposals on the table today. We are also working on additional proposals. It will be a difficult discussion as there is no silver bullet. But the budget equation is daunting. It is high time we find a solution,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The next budget \u201cwill be built on a new structure: it will be centered on national and regional partnerships for investment and reform,\u201d which \u201cwill be shaped by European priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7874,"featured_media":426764,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705],"tags":[31277,31276,25921],"class_list":["post-427308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-pac-en-2","tag-single-found","tag-von-der-leyen-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7874"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427308"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427350,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427308\/revisions\/427350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/426764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}