Seventeen EU governments want farm and regional spending protected in the next seven-year budget. They also want to consider new EU-level revenue and limited joint borrowing. Leaders of the 17 countries wrote to Taoiseach Micheál Martin, president of the Council of the European Union, asking him to safeguard agriculture and cohesion funding in the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Romanian President Nicușor Dan signed first.
The letter arrived before a revision of the Negotiating Box, the presidency’s document for directing and narrowing the budget talks. Those talks have entered a decisive phase. The signatories are Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Hungary.
The Fiscal Picture
The leaders’ central demand is volume. “The overall volume set out in the Negotiating Box of the Cypriot presidency remains the relevant basis for dealing effectively with all these financing needs,” they wrote. “This is not the time for Europe to lower its ambitions.” They accept that the next MFF must also fund security and defence, competitiveness, connectivity, energy security and resilience. But they insist this must happen “without undermining treaty-based policies.”
They say the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and cohesion policy already face real-terms cuts under the European Commission’s proposal, despite overall growth in the MFF. Another reduction, the letter argues, would weaken the budget and risk eroding public support for the European project. It wouldn’t modernise the budget either: the new MFF already brings a fundamental transformation of its structure, programming and spending approach.
The letter says new EU priorities need appropriate additional resources while agriculture and cohesion funding remain protected. The signatories say they’re ready to work on revenue proposals, including new own resources that would ease direct pressure on national budgets. Those resources should be “genuine, fair, simple and non-regressive,” in line with a May declaration. The leaders say they’ll assess the adjustments the Commission has committed to present.
Debt and Rebates
The letter also proposes changes to financing. Leaders suggest considering a more gradual repayment of NextGenerationEU to create fiscal space in the next MFF. Any move would depend on an assessment of its effect on the overall repayment cost. They also propose “limited, targeted” European debt instruments for clearly identified strategic priorities.
On national rebates, their language is blunt. The current system, they say, should have no place in the next MFF because the circumstances that justified corrections to some member states’ contributions have fundamentally changed. Assessments should weigh both the absolute level of national contributions and each member state’s relative prosperity and contribution effort.
Cohesion, CAP and the Treaty Case
The signatories defend both policies on treaty grounds. Cohesion policy and the CAP, they write, promote convergence among member states and regions and strengthen the single market. They support rural and less developed areas, contribute to competitiveness and food security, and offer tangible support to millions of European citizens. The leaders say both policies have adapted to economic and social change while retaining their treaty objectives. The letter closes with the signatories’ willingness to work with the Council presidency.
Why This Matters: The letter shows how hard the next budget fight will be. Seventeen governments back a fixed overall volume, protected farm and regional spending, new own resources, slower NextGenerationEU repayment and targeted joint debt. They also want rebates scrapped. Each choice affects what national treasuries owe and what voters in every member state are asked to fund. From the standpoint of fiscal sustainability and democratic accountability, the open questions are how much new revenue and borrowing the EU will create, and who answers for it. The letter says the repayment cost of any slower NextGenerationEU schedule still needs assessment. Defence, competitiveness and energy security must all compete for funding within the same envelope, so the presidency’s revised Negotiating Box will show which priorities shape the 2028–2034 budget.