EU Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF)
Background
The EU’s long-term budget sets spending ceilings over a seven-year period, determining how Union resources are allocated across major policy areas. The Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) is therefore more than a spending plan: it is a key policy signal of the EU’s strategic priorities.
If well designed, the MFF has the potential to mobilise private capital by reducing investment risk, providing policy certainty, and directing financial support towards projects aligned with the EU’s main strategic priorities.
State of play
On 16 July 2025, the European Commission presented its proposal for the 2028-2034 MFF, setting the overall budget at almost €2 trillion (1.26% of the EU’s Gross National Income). The proposed budget is structured around four headings:
- Heading 1 – Cohesion, agriculture, and rural and maritime policy, implemented through National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs), accounting for over €1 trillion;
- Heading 2 – Competitiveness, prosperity and security (€589.6 billion), including the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) and the InvestEU programme – the instruments most directly relevant to private investment mobilisation;
- Heading 3 – Global Europe for external action (€215 billion);
- Heading 4 – Administration
Eurosif’s work on the MFF focuses on three interconnected files:
- The European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) – the second MFF heading, with a proposed budget of approximately €234 billion across four policy windows (clean transition, digital and AI, health and biotech, defence and space). It is the EU’s main vehicle to mobilise investment and offers the full EU financial toolbox: grants, loans, guarantees, equity, blending, and procurement – all under a single rulebook.
- The InvestEU Instrument within the ECF – the guarantee mechanism designed to crowd in private and institutional capital.
- The Budget Expenditure Tracking and Performance Regulation – a newly introduced horizontal framework establishing a common set of rules for how expenditure is monitored, reported and evaluated across all programmes. A central provision is the 35% environmental and climate expenditure target.