Reaching a timely agreement on the European Union's next long-term budget will be a stiff challenge, and a race against time, MEP Carla Tavares said in a recent interview.
Tavares (S&D, PT), the co-rapporteur on the next Multiannual Financial Framework in the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets, told The Parliament that the 2027 round of national elections in several EU member states risk stalling negotiations.
"We need to work hard and more quickly, step by step. We need to try to have everything closed as soon as possible," she added.
The European Commission unveiled its budget proposal for 2028-2034 last July. The new spending plan — designed to cover everything from agriculture and infrastructure to climate initiatives and the bloc's defense — would expand from €1.2 trillion in the last seven-year cycle to €1.98 trillion.
The goal is to close all negotiations by the end of 2026, but hurdles remain. The biggest one is disagreement over the budget’s structure, which proposes to change how the largest share of the budget is allocated.
If approved, €865 billion would be funneled into a new instrument called the National and Regional Partnership Plans, which would merge two current separate strands, the Common Agricultural Policy and the so-called Cohesion Policy, a pot dedicated to narrowing the socio-economic gap between the richest and poorest European regions.
In October, senior representatives from the Greens, Socialist and Democrats, Renew and European People's Party, including Tavares, signed a letter to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen requesting amendments to the NRPPs to avoid the "re-nationalisation" of the European budget, arguing that too much national decision-making will undermine EU priorities. The letter also opposes the merging of CAP and Cohesion policy as it risks watering down their distinct roles.
A bigger EU budget
Although the four parliamentary groups agreed on the main points they want to modify in the NRPPs, "we don’t completely have the same points of view," Tavares said.
Among the four pro-European parliamentary groups, "all of us defend the competitiveness, security and defense," Tavares said, but added that her party's position is that the extra spending shouldn’t happen at the expense of resources for "traditional policies."
Tavares' staff also told The Parliament that S&D has proposed lowering the flexibility quota of the NRPP resources — the portion of funds that national governments would implement under shared management with the Commission — from 25% to 15%, arguing that "too much flexibility weakens parliamentary oversight and long-term policy predictability."
Moreover, a draft interim report authored by the two co-rapporteurs, Tavares and Siegried Mureșan (EPP, RO), proposes a 10% increase in the total budget amount.
However, such a lift could provoke national governments. "Some frugal countries, and not [just] frugal countries, don’t want to pay more," Tavares said.
In the initial proposal by the Commission, the new long-term budget would account for 1.26% of the EU's gross national income and include funds needed to repay the loans of NextGenerationEU, a recovery program Brussels implemented to relaunch the European economy after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The draft report requested raising this amount to 1.27% of the bloc's GNI, excluding an additional 0.11% allocated to pay back the NGEU, bringing the total to 1.38%.
To reduce the financial burden on member states, the Commission introduced five new European resources, including a plan to ramp up tobacco taxes across the continent.
Even if this proposal is approved during negotiations in Parliament's committees, Tavares doubts it will survive the subsequent negotiations with the European Council.
"It will be difficult because [tobacco] is [a source of] revenue for member states. It will be difficult to have unanimity in the Council," she said, adding that the Parliament is working on alternatives, including a digital services tax, a new levy on online gambling and another a national contribution based on the amount of non-recycled plastic packaging waste.
Racing the election calendar
Tavares stressed the importance of closing negotiations by the end of year or, at the very latest, in the first months of 2027 to allow member states enough time to implement the new budget.
"I worked for 12 years with MFF in my municipality and my region, in Lisbon," said Tavares, who served as mayor of Portuguese city of Amadora from 2013 to 2024. "I know that our governments need a lot of time to prepare. The step after the decision in Brussels is complex, difficult and long."
In addition, in 2027 key member states — including France, Spain, Poland and Italy — will go to the polls for general, parliamentary or presidential elections, while Germany will appoint its new federal president. Some analysts worry that delaying negotiations on the next MFF beyond this year could heighten the risk of politicization of the budget during the upcoming electoral campaigns.
While the budget committee submitted its amendments last month, the other Parliament committees will have until March 5 to submit their opinions on the interim report, which is scheduled for a full parliamentary vote in May.
When asked about the upcoming plenary vote, Tavares was optimistic, saying that the biggest challenge would come later as negotiations with the Commission and Council begin.
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