The negotiations on the 2014-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) are in full swing

– Flexibility of the EU budget;

– A revision clause of the MFF deal, half-way through;

– Future own resources of the EU budget;

– Unity of the EU budget.

Currently, negotiations are taking place (trilogues) between the Council and the Parliament with the Commission in the role of broker. All parties have stated that they want a deal by the end of June.

In a nutshell: Everybody hears the clock ticking. Intense negotiations proceed in good spirit

In a nutshell: If you cut future EU budget, at least allow it to use unspent funds in one area to feed underfed other areas or use them in the following years…

In a nutshell: How can you, in 2013, forecast with accuracy what Europe’s political priorities and GNI will be in, say, 2017? Seven years is a long time, it is worth pausing half way and check whether we are still using the right parameters.

In a nutshell: As the Member States are concerned that they pay too much into the EU budget, let’s explore possible alternatives, the aim not being to increase the budget.

In a nutshell: Negotiators discuss ways to present everything that is linked to expenses and revenues of the EU in one single document.

In particular, two proposals to amend the 2013 budget have an impact on the negotiations: draft amending budget 1 (Croatia), and draft amending budget 2 (unpaid claims from 2012).

Let’s take them each separately (see below).

The current debate within the Council is whether the payment ceilings should be adjusted to include the extra needs stemming from Croatia accession or not. If the payment ceilings are not revised, this leaves a smaller margin for following draft amending budgets, including draft amending budget 2, explained in the next box.

In a nutshell: Croatian regions, farmers and others will be entitled to benefits from EU funds as from 1 July 2013. The 2013 EU budget must reflect those new expenses.

One could see it come from afar: when adopting the 2013 EU budget last November, the Council and the Parliament issued a joint statementacknowledging that the level of payments could be insufficient to cover all the needs. They asked the Commission to issue such an amending budget when the need would arise. Settling this amending budget is one of the European Parliament’s conditions to complete the MFF negotiation in order to avoid the next financial period to start dragging unpaid claims from the past. The Council reached a political agreement to provide €7.3 billion as a first step and to discuss the remaining amount (€3.9 billion) later this year.

In a nutshell: Should unsettled and legitimate claims from the past be settled before the end of the current financial framework…?

Last time around (negotiations 2007-2013), programmes started late despite the fact that the negotiations were completed in April, we are already in June and no agreement.

In a nutshell: We need a swift agreement to finalise all legal bases, so the beneficiaries of EU funds can start using them from 1 January 2014.

Traditionally, the draft annual budget is released in April. The fact that it has not been presented yet (mid-June) illustrates the technical and political difficulties of working on it in the absence of an agreed financial framework.

Note: The Lisbon Treaty specifies that the draft annual budget must be presented by 1 July of the previous year at the latest.

In a nutshell: Producing a draft annual budget without an agreed financial framework is similar to steering ship in a rough direction without any chart…

In a nutshell: If you need EU funding for a project that runs over several years, would you launch your project with yearly funding only, recruit staff, sign long term contracts without guarantee that you will benefit from EU funding till the end of the project?