Recent press releases relating to the long-term EU budget (Multiannual Financial Framework, MFF)

Ahead of a special summit on 20 February, the EP’s negotiating team expresses its opposition to President Michel’s proposal for the next long-term budget.

EU job-search aid worth €2,641,800 for 821 former ICT workers in Finland was approved by the Budgets Committee in a vote on Thursday.

Meeting with EU Ministers on Tuesday, EP negotiators have informed Member States on the Parliament’s position on the next MFF and corresponding new Own Resources.

Ahead of this week’s plenary vote on a resolution on the planned new long-term EU budget, Budget Committee Chair Van Overtveldt shared his thoughts in an interview on EP’s Facebook page.

In an EP webinar on the EU’s long-term budget and response to the crisis, MEPs urged that the recovery fund must be set up as soon as possible to prevent a major recession.

In a debate on Monday, Budget Committee Members questioned the Commission’s Health Director-General on vaccine availability and the use of the EU budget.

The procedures for the different parts of the package for future EU financing (such as the long-term EU budget, own resources, recovery) differ. This background brief provides an overview.

Giving the European Union a budget must take priority over redistributing resources to EU member states, said Budgets Committee MEPs on Tuesday, after a third fruitless effort to engage the Council of Ministers in budgetary negotiations within the official deadline. MEPs want the most urgent bills for 2014 to be settled before discussing the 2015 budget, but the Council has yet to agree even on the first budget top up, proposed by the European Commission as long ago as May.

Ministers are outlining the priorities of the German Presidency of the Council of the EU to parliamentary committees, in a series of meetings.

On Monday, MEPs adopted the Recovery and Resilience Facility, an instrument designed to help EU countries tackling the effects and consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

MEPs have fought for and obtained better support for key EU programmes creating jobs, tackling the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and boosting climate action.

After negotiating through the night, Parliament and Council struck a deal on the EU budget for 2014, which also provides for remedying payments shortfalls in in the current fiscal year. MEPs ensured that victims of catastrophic flooding and drought in 2013 will be compensated, and that its priorities for 2014 in areas such as employment, research and innovation, border management and humanitarian aid are also taken on board.

Commenting on the draft conclusions for the 17 July EU summit, EP’s negotiators disagree with additional cuts to the long-term EU budget and urge the European Council to improve the text.

Budget MEPs set out their position for negotiating the next long-term EU budget, which should finance new priorities as well as make up for any shortfall following the UK’s departure.

A conference with national parliaments on the Future Financing of the European Union will take place in the European Parliament premises in Brussels on 7-8 September 2016.

A regularly updated chronology of MFF events

“We are ready to accelerate the negotiations, but the Council does not show any real will to negotiate our key demands”, says Budgets Committee Chair Johan Van Overtveldt.

Negotiations between Parliament and Council finally started after EU leaders found a common position on the long-term EU budget and recovery fund on 21 July.

For Parliament’s negotiating team, the preliminary proposal by Finland's presidency of the Council for the next long-term budget of the EU would “condemn the European Union to failure”.