The Road to the next Multiannual Financial Framework and public online consultation

On 12 February, the European Commission published a Communication on ‘The Road to the next Multiannual Financial Framework’, which outlines the key policy and budgetary challenges that will shape the design of the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). This lays the groundwork for reflections on how to adapt the EU’s long-term budget to evolving needs and priorities. With this Communication, the Commission also launches in parallel a Europe-wide campaign with a range of stakeholders, including Member States governments, regional entities, and citizens.

Read more about the Communication here.

Designing the budget together

The EU budget benefits all Europeans, and they should have the opportunity to express their views on the future of the EU budget. To enable this, the Commission has launched a public consultation inviting stakeholders and citizens to have their say on the future EU budget and the policies it should support. The consultations will be open until early May.

The consultation is divided into seven thematic clusters, out of which Implementing EU Funds with Member States and regions is the one concerning EU Macro-regional Strategies. This consultation covers EU funds implemented with Member States and regions in the following areas: cohesion policy, common agricultural policy, fisheries and maritime policies, home affairs and Trans-European Networks.

The decision to cluster issues serves to support the preparatory work and does not pre-empt the architecture of future programmes. All seven parts of the public consultation exercise can be found here:

• Implementing EU Funds with Member States and regions
• EU funding for competitiveness
• EU funding for external action
• EU funding for cross-border education, training and solidarity, youth, media, culture, and creative sectors, values, and civil society
• EU funding for civil protection, preparedness and response to crises
• EU funding for the single market, and cooperation between national authorities
• Performance of the EU budget

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