Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll talk about how to match priorities and resources in the EU budget,

a delicate and often complex exercise that EU institutions and member states usually undertake every seven years

to agree on the next long-term

budget for the Union. Doing more with less, this is the impossible dilemma the EU has

often faced. Over the past two decades, European leaders have entrusted the Union with a growing

number of tasks and

responsibilities. But new objectives have not been matched with financial might. In fact, the EU's

long-term budget has long been capped at around 1% of the Union's gross national income,

which makes it difficult to finance emerging priorities and respond to crises,

forcing member states to come up with off-budget instruments to be able to foot the bill.

Eulalia Rubio is a researcher at the Jacques de Law Institute in Paris and has followed the budget

negotiations very closely.

There is a political ceiling imposed by the Council on the EU budget, a ceiling at 1%

of EUG, and I say political because it is not written in any text.

It is the expression of a political consensus in the Council.

And the consequences of this political ceiling is that we have had to look for order of budget instruments

to respond to new investment needs and to respond to crisis.

During the preparation of the EU multi-annual financial framework for the period 2021 to 27,

climate action, migration and border management were identified among the emerging priorities

requiring additional joint action and funding. After more than two and a half years of tough,

often unnerving negotiations, the deal struck between Council and Parliament actually managed

...