As a taxpayer, you want your money to be well spent. The European Union’s spending is based on a seven-year plan, the multiannual financial framework (MFF), and reflects the political priorities set by European leaders. The current long-term budget was agreed at the end of 2020, when the EU was addressing the dire economic and social consequences of the pandemic. With the Member States’ economies in bad shape, EU budgetary policy focused on means for recovery, in particular through the establishment of the temporary instrument Next Generation EU (NGEU). The 2021-2027 MFF and NGEU together form the largest budget ever financed in the EU.
With its power to decide on the EU budget, the European Parliament has always defended effective financing of the EU’s commitments and priorities and of EU citizens’ interests. Parliament secured budgetary reinforcements totalling €15 billion for 10 of the EU’s flagship programmes, including research, health, Erasmus+ and border protection. Parliament also enhanced the budget’s flexibility with €1 billion to cope with urgent needs, and established respect for the rule of law as a necessary condition for receiving EU financing.
As co-legislator, Parliament helped frame a legally binding plan to reform the EU’s financing system. This reform was one of the conditions set by Parliament for giving its consent to the 2021‑2027 MFF. Parliament successfully insisted on setting out a roadmap for the introduction of new own resources to finance additional expenditure for NGEU.
In December 2022, Parliament and the Council adopted the EU Conditionality Regulation, which allows the EU to take measures if breaches of the rule of law principle affect or risk affecting the EU’s financial interests. The effects of the strengthened rule of law mechanism are beginning to show. Both Member States and candidate countries have made significant improvements according to the most recent ‘Rule of Law Index‘.
From the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Parliament has insisted on credible, predictable and adequate EU funding for Ukraine in line with the country’s needs. In February 2024, an agreement on the first ever revision of the EU’s long-term budget was reachedafter Parliament’s repeated demands. The revision secured crucial financial resources for Ukraine, with €17 billion from the EU budget and €33 billion in loans, and further enhanced funding of €4 billion for migration-related challenges and to allow for some budget flexibility.
This scrutiny activity shows how Parliament used its law-making powers as well as its influence over the budget to protect EU citizens’ interests in the long-term EU budget. Parliament’s powers fall broadly into six, often overlapping, domains: law-making, the budget, scrutiny of the executive, external relations, and, to a lesser extent, constitutional affairs and agenda-setting. This graphic shows more examples of areas where Parliament used one or more of its different powers to influence legislation:
For a fuller picture of the European Parliament’s activity over the past five years, take a look at our publication Examples of Parliament’s impact: 2019 to 2024: Illustrating the powers of the European Parliament, from which this case is drawn.
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