While no substantive decisions were taken, the Negotiating Box has now become the central reference point, marking the transition towards more explicit political positioning by member states across the whole package. From this point onwards, discussions across individual budget headings and sectoral instruments will be increasingly framed and constrained by horizontal budget politics and governance questions.<\/p>\n
The GAC debate: Horizontal tensions and budgetary fault lines<\/p>\n
The\u00a0GAC exchange on the MFF\u00a0focused on horizontal and politically sensitive issues in the Negotiating Box, notably the future architecture of cohesion and agricultural spending, conditionality, as well as own resources and the contentious issue of budgetary rebates. External action featured only marginally in the discussions. This is consistent with past MFF negotiations, where external action tends to be crowded out early on, before being pulled into trade-offs once the overall parameters tighten.<\/p>\n
Key structural signals from the Negotiating Box<\/strong><\/p>\n Several cross-cutting elements of the Negotiating Box merit particular attention:<\/p>\n First, the\u00a0four-heading structure<\/strong>\u00a0of the future MFF is now broadly accepted. While this does not prejudge funding levels, it confirms a move towards fewer, larger programmes and a more integrated budgetary architecture, which will have implications in terms of political visibility and competition between priorities.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Second,\u00a0flexibility<\/strong>\u00a0is firmly established as a core organising principle, with emphasis on built-in margins, reprogramming possibilities within and across headings, and horizontal instruments to respond to shocks. At the same time, it reflects a clear insistence by member states on stronger guardrails, ceilings and governance arrangements to frame this flexibility.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Third,\u00a0political steering<\/strong>\u00a0is being reinforced, with proposals to tighten the links between annual budgetary decisions, strategic priorities and Council guidance pointing to a broader governance shift in the MFF.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n The Negotiating Box sets out clear political markers for each of the three main headings:<\/p>\n Heading 1<\/strong>\u00a0anchors cohesion and agricultural spending in national frameworks under National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs), combining investment priorities with reform commitments;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Heading 2<\/strong>\u00a0places competitiveness and security as the organising logic of the next MFF, with the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) as a central reference point for EU spending;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Heading 3\u00a0<\/strong>confirms the Global Europe instrument (GEI) as the EU\u2019s main vehicle for external action, covering enlargement, neighbourhood, partnerships, migration, humanitarian aid and Ukraine, while explicitly linking external spending to internal priorities through synergies with the ECF and the Global Gateway.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Recalibrating Global Europe<\/p>\n Drawing on several months of intensive work in the dedicated\u00a0Ad hoc Council working group on the Global Europe instrument,\u00a0the Danish presidency circulated a presidency compromise text on the GEI proposal. It is presented as a first basis for discussion and is expected to evolve as negotiations progress and positions further crystallise. Although not public and primarily intended as a Council-internal consolidation document, the compromise text nonetheless offers a clear signal of emerging member state preferences regarding the future orientation of the instrument.<\/p>\n Stronger political steering and transactional pressures<\/p>\n First, flexibility of the GEI is increasingly framed as politically guided rather than primarily operational, with\u00a0greater emphasis on Council involvement<\/strong>\u00a0in transfer decisions, the use of unallocated resources and the mobilisation of assistance through the \u2018cushion\u2019. The Council is also calling for greater clarity on the balance between programmable and non-programmable actions under the instrument, highlighting the need to preserve crisis responsiveness while ensuring predictability and limiting ad hoc reallocations away from agreed priorities.<\/p>\n \u201cThis reinforces a more transactional framing of external action, in which cooperation is increasingly expected to deliver visible economic and strategic returns for the EU.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Second, the compromise text emphasises the centrality of\u00a0competitiveness, EU economic interests and the Global Gateway strategy.<\/strong>\u00a0References to internal-external synergies are strengthened, including explicit links to the ECF. This reinforces a more transactional framing of external action, in which cooperation is increasingly expected to deliver visible economic and strategic returns for the EU, raising questions about how this logic is balanced with long-term partnerships and development objectives.<\/p>\n Third, core\u00a0humanitarian and development principles<\/strong>\u00a0are reaffirmed through clearer references to international humanitarian law, poverty reduction, policy coherence for development and development effectiveness. However, these reinforcements remain largely declaratory, with no new binding safeguards, ring-fencing or spending targets introduced.<\/p>\n Migration<\/strong>\u00a0is the only area for which an indicative spending target is reintroduced. The reinstated 10% benchmark, combined with a tighter link between external action funding and cooperation with partner countries on migration, signals a more explicitly transactional use of the instrument and is likely to remain a key point of contention in interinstitutional negotiations.<\/p>\n A similar logic is visible for cooperation with the\u00a0Enlargement and Neighbourhood East<\/strong>, where greater weight is placed on Council steering and on linking financial support more closely to reform progress and alignment with EU political priorities.<\/p>\n \u201cThese elements point to a gradual yet meaningful recalibration of Global Europe, towards stronger political control of flexibility, closer alignment with internal priorities, and a more strategic and increasingly transactional use of the instrument.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Taken together, these elements point to a gradual yet meaningful recalibration of Global Europe, towards stronger political control of flexibility, closer alignment with internal priorities, and a more strategic and increasingly transactional use of the instrument.<\/p>\n The growing role and influence of the horizontal MFF track<\/p>\n Compared to past MFF cycles, a notable shift is the sustained and substantive scrutiny that the horizontal MFF track, managed by the\u00a0Ad Hoc Working Party on the MFF\u00a0and feeding into ECOFIN and the European Council, is now applying to thematic instruments, including Global Europe. This indicates a recalibration of political authority over EU expenditure, with Ministries of Finance and the horizontal MFF machinery exerting greater influence over thematic spending areas than previously.<\/p>\n This shift means that decisions affecting external action are increasingly shaped through horizontal trade-offs and budgetary arbitration driven by internal priorities and fiscal discipline. While this may strengthen overall coherence and budgetary discipline, it also carries risks if the specificities of external action, such as long-term partnerships, predictability and context-sensitivity, are insufficiently understood or defended in these fora.<\/p>\n As negotiations move into 2026, the balance of the MFF discussions will increasingly be shaped by horizontal choices on priorities, flexibility and governance. By embedding all headings within a common logic of conditionality, central control and competitiveness-driven prioritisation, the Negotiating Box risks steering budgetary decision-making towards a more transactional reading of EU external action, making it harder for Global Europe\u2019s distinct policy rationale to remain visible and persuasive within the political economy of the next MFF.<\/p>\n Connecting the dots as negotiations move forward<\/p>\n The process moving forward is crucial. This week\u2019s first\u00a0meeting\u00a0of the Ad Hoc Working Party on the Global Europe instrument under the Cyprus presidency will examine how the GEI interacts with other key EU legislation, including the new Performance Framework and relevant Regulations. This meeting, which will also include Budget Committee delegates,\u00a0 provides a timely opportunity to connect internal budgetary frameworks with external action objectives. Such cross-cutting discussions are indispensable for maintaining coherence between the EU\u2019s internal and external priorities as the negotiations move forward.<\/p>\n Looking ahead to 2026, the institutional balance will also continue to evolve. While the current phase is clearly Council-driven, the European Commission will progressively shape outcomes in its role as broker as interinstitutional negotiations take shape. The European Parliament,\u00a0having now confirmed its co-rapporteurs\u00a0on the Global Europe instrument \u2013 in AFET (Michael Gahler, EPP) and DEVE (Robert Biedro\u0144, S&D) \u2013 will become a more consequential actor, particularly on governance, flexibility, spending targets and safeguards. It will be important to ensure that similar crosscutting discussions also take place on the parliamentary side, to allow the Parliament to engage not only with the substance of the Global Europe instrument, but also the horizontal trade-offs that will ultimately shape its implementation.<\/p>\n For governments, NGOs and other stakeholders, this points to the importance of engaging beyond the Global Europe instrument itself: influence will increasingly depend on coordinated engagement across horizontal budget debates, finance ministries and parliamentary processes, and on clearly articulating how EU external action fits within the Union\u2019s wider strategic priorities. How these horizontal choices are navigated in 2026 will largely determine whether Global Europe retains a distinct and credible policy role within the next MFF.<\/p>\n Dr Alexei Jones <\/strong>is the head of ECDPM\u2019s\u00a0European foreign and development policy team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While no substantive decisions were taken, the Negotiating Box has now become the central reference point, marking the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699],"class_list":{"0":"post-697506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115898835512113049","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\n
\n