The EU’s next seven-year budget is still under negotiation, not agreed. On 13 October 2026, Ireland’s Council Presidency had put forward a €1.62 trillion proposal, while the European Parliament was seeking €1.78 trillion in constant 2025 prices. The dispute is about more than the total: governments and institutions are also divided over national contributions, agriculture and regional funding, new priorities, and who would oversee the money. A political agreement by the end of 2026 is the Council’s target, but missing it would complicate the timetable—not make EU funding disappear immediately.
What the EU is negotiating
The multiannual financial framework, or MFF, sets spending ceilings and allocations for the EU over seven years. The current negotiations concern the 2028–2034 framework, not the EU’s annual 2027 budget. The European Commission presented its proposal on 16 July 2025; the final package has not been adopted.
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The stakes are fiscal and political. EU countries must decide how much to contribute and what the shared budget should fund. For households, this is not a new EU bill or a direct charge announced by the proposals. The main funding sources include contributions calculated from member states’ gross national income, customs duties, a VAT-based resource and a contribution based on non-recycled plastic. National governments’ financing decisions and spending priorities are therefore central to the argument.
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The headline totals need careful reading. They come from different institutions and do not all use the same price basis or treatment of NextGenerationEU debt repayment. The €1.62 trillion figure is a live Irish Presidency proposal reported by the Associated Press on 13 October 2026; it is not an agreed Council budget.
| Proposal or position | Reported amount | What the figure means |
|---|---|---|
| Irish Council Presidency proposal | €1.62 trillion | Reported by the Associated Press on 13 October 2026; price basis and debt-repayment treatment are not stated in that report. |
| European Commission proposal | €1.76 trillion in 2025 prices | The European Parliamentary Research Service says this includes €149.3 billion for NextGenerationEU debt repayment. |
| European Parliament position | €1.78 trillion in 2025 prices; €2.01 trillion in current prices | Parliament places €149.3 billion for NextGenerationEU debt repayment above the main MFF ceilings. |
The European Parliament describes its position as €175 billion above the Commission proposal in 2025 prices. That institutional comparison should not be treated as a simple like-for-like reading of the headline totals: debt repayment is included in the Commission figure cited by the EPRS and shown separately above the Parliament’s main ceilings. Prices matter too. A total in current prices reflects price changes over time, while a constant-price total expresses the amount in a single year’s prices.
These are negotiating positions, not amounts that have been approved or money already available to spend. The €1.62 trillion proposal was described by the Associated Press as 30% above the current seven-year package and 8% below what the Commission wants. Those percentages rely on the comparisons in that report and should not be read as a settled accounting comparison across differently framed proposals.
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Why countries disagree about the money
Affordability and national contributions
Member states are weighing the size of the common budget against the cost of financing it. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the sides were “still a long way from reaching an agreement” and argued that the budget must be affordable for the countries bearing the main financing burden. Sweden’s EU Affairs Minister Jessica Rosencrantz called the Irish proposal “wildly unaffordable” and said implementing it would mean a 60% increase in Sweden’s contribution. That increase is her political characterization, reported by the Associated Press, not an independently verified calculation of what Sweden would pay under a final budget.
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The Associated Press reported that agriculture and cohesion spending together account for about two-thirds of the budget. Cohesion funding supports economic and social development across regions; agricultural funding supports the EU’s farm-policy priorities. Governments resisting cuts to these areas face a trade-off with those seeking to restrain spending or prioritize newer demands. Without higher member-state contributions or new revenue, the Associated Press framed the choice as reducing established programmes or scaling back ambitions in areas such as defence and competitiveness.
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Parliament wants clearly ring-fenced funding for agriculture, fisheries, cohesion policy and the European Social Fund, alongside greater investment in competitiveness, defence, innovation, and green and digital transitions. It has also objected to the Commission’s proposed national-and-regional-plan structure, arguing that it could weaken transparency, parliamentary scrutiny and the protection of established EU policies. Those are Parliament’s concerns about the proposal, not a finding that the structure has already caused those outcomes.
Who pays—and whether new revenue can help
The Commission has proposed possible new EU revenue linked to emissions trading, the carbon border adjustment mechanism, non-recycled e-waste, tobacco excise duties and a contribution from large companies. Parliament estimates these options could generate €60 billion a year. That is an estimate, not enacted or guaranteed revenue. Parliament supports new own resources, but creating them requires a unanimous decision by member states and ratification in each country, making the process politically demanding.
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Why the election outlook is part of the story
The Associated Press report of 13 October 2026 connected the push for a deal to elections in France, Italy, Poland and Spain later in 2026 and in 2027. It described uncertainty about the contests and, in France, hard-right strength in polling. The report does not provide a comprehensive election calendar or establish what any result will mean for the budget talks.
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The political logic is that national elections can change governments, priorities or willingness to compromise. Leaders may therefore prefer to settle the broad budget package while the current governments are negotiating. That is a reason timing may matter, not proof that an election will derail talks or alter any country’s eventual position. European Council President António Costa said a “timely agreement” was essential to give economies predictability and stability in an unstable world.
What happens next—and what a missed target would mean
Ireland, which holds the rotating Council Presidency in the second half of 2026, is trying to prepare the ground for a leaders’ political agreement by the end of the year. Its Minister of State for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne, said the Presidency’s task was to “find that basis”; he added that it had not been asked to find a basis for agreement yet. The Associated Press reported an EU leaders’ summit scheduled for 15–16 October 2026.
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 16 July 2025 | The European Commission presented its 2028–2034 MFF proposal. |
| 28 April 2026 | Parliament adopted its interim report and negotiating position by 370 votes to 201, with 84 abstentions. |
| 11 June 2026 | The Cyprus Presidency presented a revised Council negotiating box with figures. |
| End of 2026 | The Council’s target for a political agreement among leaders. |
| 2027 | The Council and Parliament are expected to complete adoption work, including sectoral programme legislation. |
| January 2028 | The new MFF is due to begin. |
The deadline matters because a political agreement is only one part of the process. The MFF regulation is adopted by the Council unanimously after Parliament gives its consent. Parliament can approve or reject the Council’s position, but cannot amend it. The own-resources decision has its own unanimity and national-ratification requirements, while most individual spending programmes proceed through their relevant ordinary legislative procedures.
The Council says agreement by the end of 2026 would leave time for the programme laws to be adopted in 2027 and for funding to start under the new framework in 2028. Missing the political target does not mean that EU money immediately runs out. It would, however, make the remaining legislative and approval timetable more difficult. As Thomas Byrne put it, “Nobody’s going to get everything that they want,” but the Presidency hoped there would be something in the proposal for each side.
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