Seventeen EU leaders have asked Taoiseach Micheál Martin to protect agriculture and cohesion funding in the bloc’s next long-term budget, warning that the European Commission’s proposal already cuts both policies in real terms. Their letter arrived before a revision of the Negotiating Box, which the Council presidency uses to steer and narrow budget talks.
Funding under pressure
The signatories said the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) should preserve overall funding for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and cohesion policy. They pointed out that the proposed cuts would come even as the next MFF grows in size.
Further reductions, they argued, would weaken the budget and risk eroding public support for the European project. The next MFF already marks a fundamental change in its structure, programming and approach to spending, they said, and another cut won't modernise it.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Romanian President Nicușor Dan were the letter’s first signatories. Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Hungary also signed.
Security and farm policy
The leaders said the next EU budget should meet needs in security and defence, competitiveness, connectivity, energy security and resilience without weakening treaty-based policies. “This is not the time for Europe to lower its ambitions,” they wrote. The overall volume in the Cypriot presidency’s Negotiating Box, they said, remains the relevant basis for meeting the bloc’s financing needs.
Cohesion policy and the CAP, they said, promote convergence among member states and regions, strengthen the single market, support rural and less developed areas, contribute to competitiveness and food security, and provide tangible support to millions of European citizens. They added that the policies have adapted to economic and social changes while keeping their treaty objectives and delivering direct and indirect benefits across the EU.
The letter said negotiations were entering a decisive phase and offered “some reflections ahead of the forthcoming revision of the Negotiating Box.” New EU priorities need appropriate additional resources, the leaders wrote, while agriculture and cohesion funding must remain protected.
Revenue and repayment proposals
The signatories said they're ready to work on revenue proposals, including new own resources that could ease direct pressure on national budgets. Those resources should be “genuine, fair, simple and non-regressive,” in line with a May declaration, they said. They will assess adjustments the Commission has committed to present.
They also proposed looking at a more gradual repayment of NextGenerationEU to create additional fiscal space in the next MFF. The option should be assessed for its effect on the overall repayment cost, they said. The leaders also proposed limited, targeted European debt instruments for clearly identified strategic priorities.
On national rebates, the leaders said the current system shouldn't feature in the next MFF because the circumstances that once 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, they said. The signatories remain open to working with the Council presidency.