The long-term EU budget [What Think Tanks are thinking]

European Union leaders agreed at their informal meeting on 23 February that the EU should spend more after 2020 on curbing illegal migration, on defence and security, and on the Erasmus+ student-exchange programme. The summit marked a preparatory stage in negotiations on the EU's next long-term budget, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which will span a period of five or seven years, starting in January 2021. There was no agreement on how to plug the hole in the budget resulting from the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the EU in 2019. Some net-paying countries argued that EU spending should remain at the current level of approximately 1 % of EU gross national income, despite new priorities. That could mean cuts in funding available for cohesion and agricultural policies. Another dispute concerned the possibility of linking the receipt of EU funds to respect of EU fundamental values. The Commission is due to make a detailed post-2020 MFF proposal in May 2018. This note offers links to a selection of recent commentaries, studies and reports from some of the major international think tanks and research institutes, which discuss the EU's long-term budget and related reforms. It updates a previous edition published in January 2018.