Key developments in the five phases

The culmination of the negotiations between Member States took place in the European Council. Following the initial informal discussion in February 2018, the European Council regularly (every six months) touched upon the MFF negotiations at its meetings throughout 2018 and 2019, (see Figure 1), but did not really attempt to reach an agreement. At the December 2019 European Council EU leaders discussed actual figures for the first time, based on a negotiating box proposed by the Finnish Presidency. The discussion itself was more about the procedure for reaching an agreement, and the outcome of the meeting was that the newly instated President of the European Council, Charles Michel, was given a mandate ‘to take the negotiations forward with the aim of reaching a final agreement’.