Irish EU Presidency presents proposal for budget by 2034

A the Irish presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) today presents a proposal on the 2028-2034 Community budget, in the context of differences between countries calling for the maintenance of funds and those calling for cuts.

It is the document setting the basis for negotiations between the Member States in the coming months, which will be presented by the Irish Minister for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne, at a press conference scheduled for 11:00 in Brussels (10:00 in Lisbon).

The revised proposal, which should include new sources of revenue to finance the Community budget, comes before next week's European Council meeting, devoted, among other topics, to the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), which will set the EU's priorities and expenditure limits between 2028 and 2034.

However, EU countries remain divided on the overall budget dimension, the financing of new European priorities and the distribution of resources between cohesion, agriculture, competitiveness, defence and external action.

At the end of September, the countries considered to be frugal – Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and Sweden – asked the Irish presidency for further cuts of “thousands of millions of euros” in a letter which reinforced the pressure on the volume proposed for the next budget.

To the contrary, Portugal and the other members of the Friends of Cohesion group advocate the preservation of cohesion, as well as the maintenance of adequate funding for agriculture and the less developed regions, the so-called traditional policies of the Union.

The discussion on budget financing is also linked to the possibility of using new European own revenue and common debt instruments to finance investments with added value for the Union, although these options continue to face different degrees of resistance between Member States.

In July 2025, the European Commission presented a budget proposal of around EUR 2 billion at current prices for the period 2028-2034, equivalent to about 1.26% of EU gross national income.

The European Parliament, for its part, advocates a more ambitious budget, equivalent to 1.27% of gross national income, with the repayment of the debt of the recovery and resilience fund accounted for outside the MFF spending limits.

MEPs support the creation of new own revenue to generate around EUR 60 billion annually and admit to exploring alternatives, such as a contribution to digital services, a gambling and online gambling fee or a contribution to crypto-values.

As early as last June, the Cypriot Presidency of the Council proposed a reduction of EUR 32.8 billion, about 2%, from the Commission proposal, to a total of approximately EUR 1.73 billion at constant prices of 2025.

The presentation of the new Irish version should make it possible to assess the extent to which the presidency has managed to approximate positions on the volume of the budget, the balance between policies and the Union's financing system.

European leaders intend to reach agreement on the next budget by the end of 2026 to allow the new framework to enter into force in January 2028.