Inside the EU’s long-term budget: The multiannual financial framework explained
Authors
Dossier – Last updated on 15 January 2025
The multiannual financial framework (MFF) is the EU’s long-term budget, powering its policies both within and beyond its borders over a seven-year period. The current MFF, amounting to €1.2 trillion (in constant prices and excluding the €750 billion allocated for the NextGenerationEU recovery instrument), will run until 2027. The European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the EU – representing the EU member states – are gearing up for negotiations on the next budget framework beyond 2027, set to begin in earnest in 2025.
In a world of growing divisions and escalating challenges, the rapidly changing global and European (geo)political context will inevitably complicate negotiations and influence both the agreed amounts and the focus of the EU’s ambitions within and beyond its borders.
Building on years worth of work on the multiannual financial framework, we will provide analysis, facilitate discussion and closely monitor the negotiations leading up to the final agreement on the next long-term budget. We will examine the implications for Europe’s global role, focusing on its foreign policy, development and international cooperation, and relations with its immediate neighbourhood, Africa and the Global South. We will also look at the coherence between internal and external policies and between budgetary instruments, as well as the extent to which they complement each other.
In this dossier, you can find our latest work on the new long-term budget, as well as insights into the current and past frameworks.
Get in touch
Would you like to know about our work on the EU’s long-term budget, engage our expertise or share your thoughts? Get in touch with Alexei Jones, Mariella Di Ciommo or Andrew Sherriff. For media enquiries, please contact Isabell Wutz or Virginia Mucchi.
Explore our work
- Negotiations on the 2028-2034 MFF
- Implementation of the 2021-2027 MFF
- Negotiations on the 2021-2027 MFF
- Implementation of the European Development Fund
- Negotiations on the 2014-2020 MFF
Negotiations on the 2028-2034 MFF
Discussions on the next multiannual financial framework have already started, with formal negotiations scheduled for late 2025. Through a series of analysis and events, we aim to inform this process and shed light on the complexities of the negotiations.
The post-2027 MFF must address unprecedented geopolitical instability, ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, economic competitiveness, strategic autonomy and migration priorities.
ECDPM infographics on the post-2027 MFF
Both infographics were produced for the ECDPM paper 'The multiannual financial framework after 2027: Financing the EU’s global ambitions'. For more information, contact Alexei Jones.

Implementation of the 2021-2027 MFF
The current MFF is structured around specific headings, including Heading 6 – Neighbourhood and the World. Within these headings, funds are allocated through various instruments. Under heading 6, the largest instrument is the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument – Global Europe (NDICI-Global Europe). Over the past few years, we analysed how NDICI-Global Europe has been implemented.
Negotiations on the 2021-2027 MFF
Starting in 2018, we conducted extensive analysis on various aspects of the negotiation process for the 2021-2027 multiannual financial framework. Some of this analysis focused on specific geographic or thematic issues, while other work provided a broader, more overarching perspective.
Implementation of the European Development Fund
The European Development Fund (EDF), while not formally part of the MFF, was typically negotiated, planned and implemented alongside it. This multibillion-euro instrument targeted specific African, Caribbean and Pacific countries under the Cotonou Partnership Agreement. The 11th EDF is currently being ‘spent down’ following the decision not to renew it in 2021, with the fund being replaced by NDICI-Global Europe. We examined in detail the implementation of the EDF at the national and regional levels.