Grand pact approved, Brussels can spend nearly €200 billion next year
Although formal approval is still pending, it appears that the European Council, which comprises the member states, has agreed to the proposal put forward by parliamentary negotiators on Saturday. This means that the EU budget for 2026 will be higher than the Commission originally planned.
Negotiators agreed to set the overall level of commitment appropriations for 2026 (legal promises to pay in the same year or later) at €192.8 billion, and payment appropriations (actual payments made to beneficiaries) at €190.1 billion.
The provisional agreement restores €1.3 billion cut by EU governments to the levels originally proposed by the Commission on commitment appropriations.
Parliament successfully negotiated an additional €372.7 million in funding beyond the Commission's initial proposal,
focusing on programmes and policies aimed at improving people's lives, boosting competitiveness, and addressing defence challenges.
Research and infrastructure
MEPs secured an increase of allocations for Horizon Europe by €20 million and transport and energy networks by €23.5 million in order to boost competitiveness, job-creation and cross-border infrastructure. MEPs strengthened support for education by adding €3 million to the Erasmus+ programme.
Agriculture and environment
The EU’s environment and climate action instrument, the LIFE programme, will receive an additional €10 million in funding, while the EU4Health programme will benefit from a further €3 million.
In line with Parliament's priorities, and to create new opportunities, particularly for young farmers, funding for measures promoting European agricultural products under
theEuropean Agricultural Guarantee Fundhas been increased by €105 million.
This increase was made possible by higher-than-expected revenue and carried-over funds.
Response capabilities and military mobility
Parliament secured an additional €10 million to the Civil Protection Mechanism and RescEU to improve coordination and disaster response in light of the increasing frequency of natural disasters. Playing an essential role in the EU’s defence preparedness, military mobility gets an additional €10 million funding. MEPs also ensured that border management will be reinforced with an additional €10 million.
Geopolitical instability, global crises
Parliament pushed for an additional €35 million for the EU’s Southern Neighbourhood, and a €25 million increase for the Eastern Neighbourhood (including Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Morocco, and Libya). It also secured a €35 million increase in humanitarian aid, in response to growing geopolitical instability, accelerating global humanitarian crises, and climate change-induced emergencies.
Repayment costs for the NextGenerationEU recovery package
The EU faces an unexpected €4.2 billion overrun in borrowing costs for NextGenerationEU in 2026, double the Commission’s forecast. MEPs guaranteed that should not reduce funding for essential programmes like Erasmus+ or EU4health and reversed some of the cuts made by EU governments to the original amounts estimated by the Commission. The overrun costs are dealt with as agreed previously in the “cascade mechanism”, designed to manage the reimbursement of escalating NextGenerationEU borrowing costs and to protect flagship programmes.
Once the Council formally adopts the compromise, it will be discussed in the Committee on Budgets next Thursday (20 November), then
voted on in plenary in the European Parliament (during the November session in Strasbourg) and signed into law by its President.
More than 93% of the EU budget goes directly into EU programmes that support people and projects across member states. The annual EU budget, which serves 27 countries and 450 million Europeans, is relatively small – on average €160-200 billion during 2021-27. This is comparable to the national budget of Poland, which serves 39 million people, or the equivalent of 30% of the budget of Germany, which serves 84 million people. (Source:Commission)
