Strasbourg: The fight over the next EU budget is heating up as the European Parliament presses for a far bigger long-term framework than many member states want to fund. In an interim report adopted on 28 April 2026, MEPs set their mandate for talks on the 2028-2034 Multiannual Financial Framework and called for spending worth 1.27 percent of the bloc’s gross national income, or about 1,789 billion euro in 2025 prices.
That figure lands well above what capitals are ready to pay. Governments remain split over the sheer size of the EU budget, the design of the structural funds, and the new sources of revenue the Commission wants to introduce. Those three questions now sit at the centre of every negotiating session.
Ireland took over the rotating Council presidency on 1 July 2026 and inherited the job of moving the talks forward. Dublin aims to advance the negotiating box before the October summit of EU leaders, with the goal of a final deal by the end of the year. You can track the milestones on the Council’s long-term budget timeline.
The clock drives the urgency. If leaders fail to agree in 2026, the sectoral laws that turn the framework into real programmes cannot pass in 2027, and beneficiaries would lose access to funds in January 2028. Farmers, regions, and researchers all depend on that money arriving on schedule.
Parliament wants more than a bigger number. MEPs argue that the EU budget must match Europe’s growing bills for defence, competitiveness, and the debt taken on during the pandemic recovery. Their interim report, explained on the Parliament’s research service site, warns that an under-funded framework would leave the bloc unable to meet its own promises.
The Council counters with caution. National treasuries face tight budgets at home, and several net contributors resist any rise in their payments or in the new own resources that would channel money straight to Brussels. The Commission has tried to bridge the gap with a simpler structure that folds many programmes into single national plans.
Cohesion policy and farm subsidies still swallow most of the framework, and any push to free money for defence or new technology means squeezing those traditional envelopes. Eastern and southern member states guard their regional funds fiercely, while frugal northern capitals resist any rise in the overall ceiling.
The coming months will decide who blinks. Parliament holds a veto over the final framework, so the Council cannot simply impose a lower ceiling. With the October summit approaching, the EU budget battle is set to become the defining institutional fight of the year.
