MEPs say Council "not serious" about competitiveness being a new priority

Leading MEPs on the EU's budget say the Council of the EU "cannot be serious to say that security, defence and competitiveness are the EU's new priorities" while reducing its budget for 2028-2034.

Speaking at a press conference on 15/06/2026, Siegfried Mureşan, a Romanian centre-right MEP who drafted the European Parliament’s report on the EU’s 2028-2034 budget, said: "Security, competitiveness and defence are the new priorities of the European Union. They should also be the new priorities of the budget. We support this as the European Parliament."

On 11/06/2026, Cyprus, which holds the presidency of the EU's Council of Ministers until the end of June, has presented a draft compromise for the Union's budget for 2028-2034 with cuts of about 2% in the entire budget and a 4% cut in funding for the Horizon Europe research programme and the Erasmus+ mobility scheme, compared to the Commission's proposal.

Mureşan, who argued that the Commission's proposed budget was insufficient to meet the EU's expanding responsibilities and advocated a 10% increase in funding for all programmes compared…