The European Parliament has established its negotiating mandate for the community bloc’s budget for the period 2028-2034, worth over 2,000 billion euros, by adopting an interim report. MEPs call for funding of 1.27% of gross national income for EU programs and warn that this is the minimum necessary for the union to be able to respond to current geopolitical, climatic and economic challenges, reports IPN.

The European Parliament’s chief negotiator for the EU budget, Siegfried Muresan, emphasized that the report also proposes a 12% increase in funds allocated to the Republic of Moldova and other candidate states for accession, compared to the initial proposal of the European Commission. Mureșan insisted on the creation of dedicated pre-accession funding lines, intended to provide predictability to the preparation process.

According to the approved interim report, the European legislature emphasizes that the funding of new objectives, such as defense and competitiveness, should not be achieved at the expense of cohesion and agriculture policies. The MEPs request a doubling of resources for key areas, including innovation, green transition, health, and education through the Erasmus+ program.

At the same time, in order to support this level of investment, MEPs are calling for the introduction of new own resources, estimated to generate approximately 60 billion euros annually. These could come from taxes applied to digital services, online gambling, or earnings from crypto-assets.

The next stage of the process pertains to the European Council, which must agree on a common position to initiate the final negotiations. The last word on the multiannual financial framework belongs to the European Parliament.