Commission President von der Leyen speaks at EU Budget Conference about next MFF

The EU's Annual Budget Conference, this year with the title 'From local action to global influence: the next long-term Union budget' is taking place on 20 and 21 May 2025 in Brussels. At the beginning of the conference, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave a keynote speech on 'A flexible budget for a changing world'. In her speech, the President focussed on lessons learnt in recent years, and on the principles for the next Multiannual Financial Framework. With reference to the Research Framework Programme, Ms von der Leyen said it would stay as a self-standing programme, but would be tightly connected to the Competitiveness Fund.

Other key messages from the Commission President's speech were the following:

• Flexibility: More flexibility, agility and responsiveness of the EU budget is required. Currently 90 percent of the budget are pre-allocated from the start, and the EU is working with a budget designed in 2019/2020.
• Greater coherence in EU funding our priorities: There are too many instruments, and too little coordination of the European, national an regional level, also with the private sector and other institutions. Local authorities need to be deeply involved in designing reforms and investments. There will be a "central place" for Cohesion Policy and Common Agricultural Policy in the next EU budget.
• Simplification: according to the Commission President, "the next Budget will have one single European Competitiveness Fund, with simpler rules and transparent procedures. It will pull together investment power at EU level in strategic sectors, from artificial intelligence to space, from clean and biotechnologies to defence and space, to the benefit of the entire Single Market. Operating under one rulebook. Offering a single gateway to project promoters, from small, medium or bigger companies to researchers and universities. Offering the whole box of financial tools, to catalyse private and public investment. In a nutshell, the Competitiveness Fund will offer support for the investment journey of a project. From an idea to the market. From research to start-up, scale up and global manufacturing. But let me be clear: Our framework programme Horizon Europe will stay as a self-standing programme. It is an outstanding brand - the most renowned research programme worldwide. But it will be tightly connected to our Competitiveness Fund. We need a seamless flow from fundamental research to applied research to start-ups to scale-up. […] Horizon Europe has financed groundbreaking research that has won 33 Nobel Prizes over the last 40 years. We want this success story to continue. And for this, our budget must keep pace with a changing world. This is the mission ahead of us.”
• New own resources: The EU needs new resources of financing to finance new priorities, and to repay the loans for NextGeneration EU. This cannot be borne by national budgets alone, but the EU needs new own resources.

The Annual EU Budget Conference can also be followed online here.

For more information:

Speech by Commission President von der Leyen at the Annual EU Budget Conference 2025