EU long-term budget A tough nut to crack

Research evidence excerpt

EU long-term budget A tough nut to crack

iciaries from January 2028.

Finding a palatable budget this year would also avoid running up against next year’s French,

Italian, and Polish elections. Rassemblement National, the party of presidential hopeful Marine

Le Pen – who has recently been cleared to stand for office – is highly critical of the EU budget

and had previously announced their intention to seek a reduction of EUR2-3bn in France’s

contribution to the EU budget but keeping their CAP payments.

NGEU has proven a success

NGEU: A macroeconomic success…

The Recovery and Resilience facility (RRF) mobilised some EUR576bn of funds and has been

Research shows NGEU had

found a successful countercyclical tool that supported demand and employment during the post-the desired economic

impact… pandemic recovery (IMF, June 2026). According to the EU, together with the previous MFF,

RRF funds are estimated to have brought at least EUR1.22 for each EUR1.00 invested (EU

Budget Policy brief: The leverage effect of the EU Budget, EC, June 2026).

…with plenty of macroeconomic firepower left

At the time of writing, EU-wide some 27% of total RRF grants remain to be disbursed and nearly

…with more likely to come as

a quarter of loans remain to be paid out. The highest disbursement rate of funds is found inexpenditure is lagging

disbursement Austria, Italy, Slovenia, and France, but disbursements are well ahead of spending (see charts

1 and 2). This is especially true of loans, where bureaucratic delays, administrative capacity

limits, and procurement processes have billions of funds still sitting in national accounts. By the

end-2025, some 38% of the total RRF loan envelope had been used by EU economies

compared with a disbursement of 72% of the loan envelope.