EU member states have agreed a partial negotiating position on new rules to monitor and evaluate how the next long-term EU budget for 2028 to 2034 performs.
The proposed law, known as the performance framework regulation, would set out a single approach for oversight, monitoring and reporting across the EU’s multiannual financial framework (MFF) — its seven-year spending plan, the Council of the EU said in a statement on Friday.
It includes common “horizontal” principles and targets to be applied across EU spending, including the “do no significant harm” principle and gender equality, as well as climate and environmental targets, it added.
The framework would also standardise how EU spending is monitored and how performance is measured, including through streamlined indicators designed to allow data to be combined across different programmes.
A new online “single gateway” would be created to provide information about funding opportunities across the EU budget.
The Council said its position is partial because it excludes certain cross-cutting issues that are still being discussed as part of the wider negotiations on the 2028–2034 budget.
Environmental checks and reporting burden
Under the Council’s mandate, the European Commission would be tasked with defining a methodology for assessing compliance with the “do no significant harm” environmental principle in EU spending, the Council said.
The text also says reporting requirements for member states and funding recipients should be proportionate and follow the “once-only principle” — meaning information should not be requested repeatedly when it has already been provided.
Makis Keravnos, Cyprus’s finance minister, said the proposed regulation was intended to deliver “maximum transparency, maximum accountability and maximum visibility for the EU budget”, in a statement published by the Council.
The Council noted that the mandate allows it to start negotiations with the European Parliament on the regulation.
An agreement on the overall 2028–2034 budget by the end of 2026 would allow related laws to be adopted in 2027, which the Council said is needed to avoid interruption to EU funding from January 2028.
