Brussels, June 19, 2026 (Lusa) - The Portuguese prime minister, Luís Montenegro, said on Friday that “the substance” of the decisions reached in negotiations on the European Union (EU) budget for 2028–2034 is more important than reaching an agreement before the end of this year.
“The timetable is important, but more important than the timetable is the merit and substance of the decisions,” said Luís Montenegro at the end of a two-day European Council meeting in Brussels, following a day centred on discussions about the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF).
“We cannot have the MFF within a specific timeframe just for the sake of it; we must have it because it is what is best for the EU in the coming years. So, in short, I would say that lengthy negotiations are expected, in principle until the end of the year, but there is no guarantee that this will be the case; we will have to see how the situation develops,” he emphasised.
According to Luís Montenegro, “there are many issues and, as always, there will need to be understanding, compromise and a meeting of minds”, which is “a difficult task”.
Nevertheless, in the conclusions of the European summit, EU leaders today committed to reaching an agreement by the end of the year on the next multiannual budget for the years 2028 to 2034, despite the countries’ positions still being far apart, in order to secure the benefits in good time.
At this meeting in Brussels, the leaders took stock of the state of play in the negotiations, as presented by the Cypriot presidency, which is currently leading the Council of the EU, at a time when the positions of the member states remain far apart.
Portugal enters this stage of the negotiations from a position of strength, after Brussels recognised the need to adjust the national allocation, resulting in an additional increase of around €1.6 billion, primarily for cohesion funding.
Nevertheless, the final outcome remains to be seen, depending on the overall balance of the budget, including the outcome of negotiations on new sources of revenue, with the aim being to reach an interinstitutional agreement before the end of this year.
“We did not arrive here feeling particularly satisfied. We intervened by drawing the European Commission’s attention [via a letter to its President, Ursula von der Leyen] to the need to comply with the rules of the Treaties and to correct any non-compliance with those rules, particularly with regard to cohesion policy. And our intervention was not limited to the Portuguese situation; it applied to all countries that meet these criteria,” Luís Montenegro told Portuguese journalists.
Nevertheless, for the head of government, the progress “is not entirely satisfactory”, as the proposals for the EU as a whole envisage that cohesion and agricultural policies will fall from accounting for 68% of the Commission’s budget to 45%, whilst there is an increase from 16% to 30% for policies aimed at modernisation and boosting economic competitiveness.
“We must find sources of funding, we must find better mechanisms for private financing, we must address the issue of shared debt and, in particular, whether or not it is a sound strategy to have the repayment level, for example, of Next Generation [the recovery fund financing the PRR], which is currently set out in the initial proposal, or whether we can defer that payment to a later date, which does not even constitute additional debt; it is merely the financial management of a shared debt that already exists,” said Luís Montenegro.
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