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The EU’s next long-term budget (2028–2034): the big picture, and a deeper dive into Global Europe

On 16 July, the European Commission tabled its plan for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the EU’s seven-year budget for 2028–2034. As summer recedes and Brussels’ engine whirs back to life, it is a good moment to look under the bonnet.

Europe’s seven-year budget is never just an accounting exercise. It is a statement of priorities, and, this time, an admission that the world has changed faster than Brussels’ machinery was designed to move.

Why now? Because the mix of risks is sharper and more intertwined: a grinding war on the EU’s border; tougher geopolitics and weaponised interdependence; supply-chain fragility and an urgent race for competitiveness; migration pressure; inflationary aftershocks; climate and biodiversity imperatives; and the hard practicalities of preparing for EU enlargement. The budget, in short, has to do more and react faster than the one it replaces.

In this context, the Commission proposes a €1.763 trillion framework (2025 prices). Compared with 2021–2027, this represents a notable increase in absolute terms of approximately 40%. Measured against the economy, the ceiling comes to 1.26% of the EU’s Gross National Income, up from 1.13%.

This translates roughly to €560 per person per year across a Union of about 450 million people. Whether that is “a lot” depends on what it will deliver in practice.

So how does the plan look on paper? The Commission’s answer is a streamlined architecture: four headings instead of seven, and roughly 16 programmes instead of today’s 50 plus. The idea is fewer silos, clearer objectives, and more room to manoeuvre when priorities shift.

The new architecture, in plain English

The Commission groups spending into four baskets:

• Heading 1 corrals the big, familiar workhorses (cohesion funds and agricultural policy) into national and regional partnership plans, and it also carries the repayments for the pandemic-era NextGenerationEU borrowing. It is the largest pot, at roughly €946.4 bn, but grows only modestly versus today (an increase of 14%).

• Heading 2 is where the political heat is: €522.2 bn (an increase of 132%) dedicated to competitiveness, prosperity, and security. Think research and innovation (via a European Competitiveness Fund, including Horizon Europe), skills and mobility (Erasmus+), critical infrastructure (the Connecting Europe Facility), single market programmes, civil protection and health response, and nuclear-related lines. The intention is to put serious money behind Europe’s economic resilience and strategic autonomy.

• Heading 3—Global Europe covers the EU’s external action. With €190 bn inside the MFF (and a further €88.9 bn for Ukraine outside the ceilings), it is larger than before, but otherwise carries a similar mix of programmes to Heading 6 in the current MFF. It brings together the new Global Europe instrument, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), and international fisheries agreements.

• Heading 4 covers administration (€104.4 bn). The cost of running the institutions that, in turn, run the budget.

The four headings add up to a broad statement of intent: how Europe invests in its regions, equips its economy, manages its institutions, and positions itself beyond its borders. It is this outward-facing dimension (Heading 3, Global Europe) that warrants a closer look, not least because it defines how the EU will engage with its neighbourhood and the wider world in the years ahead.

Heading 3—Global Europe

Heading 3 is the EU’s external action envelope. For 2028–2034, it totals €190 bn inside the MFF, plus a further €88.9 bn for Ukraine above the ceilings. It brings together the new Global Europe instrument, the CFSP, support to the OCTs, and international fisheries agreements—a similar mix as under Heading 6 in the current MFF, but with a bigger scale.

The Global Europe instrument

At the heart of Heading 3 lies the Global Europe instrument, which is set to become the financial backbone of Brussels’ external action. Building on its predecessor, NDICI–Global Europe, it centralises aid, development finance, and geopolitical tools into a single €176.8 bn package (2025 prices). Its ambition is wide: to fund everything from humanitarian relief to enlargement, from sub-Saharan infrastructure to Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.

Policy-wise, the instrument backs a sharper mix: credible pre-accession support, sturdier neighbourhood partnerships, principled humanitarian aid, and a beefed-up Global Gateway to mobilise investment. All are underpinned by commitments to democracy and human rights, gender equality, climate and biodiversity, and migration management. When partners face balance-of-payments stress, macro-financial assistance can be deployed.

Architecture of the instrument

Global Europe is deliberately geographised: five regional pillars (Europe, MENA & Gulf, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific, Americas & Caribbean) plus one global pillar. Each pillar has a programmable core for multi-year country and regional strategies and a non-programmable component for targeted needs, so the EU can plan at scale but pivot when circumstances change. The global pillar backs cross-regional priorities such as health security, climate and biodiversity, digital connectivity, and rule-of-law initiatives. In short: geography first, with room for global initiatives where Brussels wants to project norms.

Funding allocations

The scale is striking. Sub-Saharan Africa takes the lion’s share (€53.4 bn), reflecting Europe’s strategic concerns over migration, energy, and security ties south of the Sahara. Europe itself follows closely (€38.1 bn), thanks to enlargement and pre-accession support. The Middle East and North Africa also looms large (€37.9 bn), underscoring the EU’s perennial Mediterranean preoccupations. Smaller but still significant are Asia-Pacific (€15.1 bn), the Americas & Caribbean (€8.1 bn), and global programmes (€11.2 bn).

An “emerging challenges and priorities” cushion of €13.1 bn provides Brussels with the agility to reallocate funds swiftly as crises or opportunities arise.

Ukraine is a special case: its reconstruction support (grants, loans and guarantees) is financed outside the MFF ceilings, but channelled and implemented through the Global Europe instrument.

EU Budget 2028–2024: Global Europe Instrument

Implications for business

For companies and implementing partners, Global Europe is not just about policy—it is also a market. Development contractors, consultancies, NGOs, and infrastructure firms will find the largest opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa, where EU money will flow into energy, transport, and digital projects tied to migration management and climate transition. Ukraine is another focal point, with grants, concessional loans, and guarantees earmarked for reconstruction, opening the door to contracts in housing, energy grids, and critical infrastructure.

Oversight and control

Global Europe will sit inside the EU’s next €1.76 trillion MFF. Even before the ink is dry, frugal member states have signalled that this top-line figure is too rich. That pressure could bite both across the board and within Heading 3.

But size is only half the story. The other fault line is oversight. Under the current MFF, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have repeatedly complained that NDICI diluted their scrutiny: funds were complexly structured, and the Commission enjoyed too much leeway. The new proposal doubles down on flexibility. Within each of Global Europe’s six pillars, the Commission would be able to shift funds across categories—say, from humanitarian aid to competitiveness, or from macro-financial assistance to resilience—without going back to the budget authority for approval. Across pillars, the Commission would be allowed to reallocate up to 10% of a pillar’s funds autonomously.

To Brussels insiders, this flexibility is a feature, not a bug: it allows the EU to pivot swiftly when crises erupt. Yet for MEPs, it looks like a further erosion of parliamentary control over tens of billions of euros in external spending.

The combination of scale and discretion could make Global Europe more potent, but also more politically contentious than its predecessor. In any case, only time will tell. As the MFF proposal is still at an early stage, the final framework may well shrink in both scale and ambition…

What’s next?

Legally, the MFF follows Article 312 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: a Council regulation adopted unanimously, with the European Parliament’s consent. Alongside it comes a renewed Inter-Institutional Agreement to choreograph the annual budget dance. None of this is quick. Technical talks begin now; political horse-trading will intensify through 2026–2027. If precedent is any guide, the final compromise will land uncomfortably close to the end of 2027, just in time for the new framework to start on 1 January 2028.

That means the numbers, the balance between headings, and the fine print on oversight are all still up for negotiation. Global Europe may not emerge in its proposed shape: frugal governments will push to slim down the overall envelope, while MEPs are likely to demand stronger parliamentary control over the Commission’s newfound flexibility. What Brussels has on the table today is an opening bid rather than the final word.

Note: All figures in this article are expressed in 2025 constant prices. The European Commission usually presents headline figures in current prices. We use constant prices here to ensure better comparability across MFF periods.

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