A budget revolution in sight

Discussions on the next European budget are taking place against a tense backdrop. And in the corridors of Brussels, there is talk of revolution. Gone are the various programmes as we know them. The budget is set to fall in line with Europe’s major priorities – competitiveness and security in particular. It is said that budget allocation would be contingent on “reforms”, and that a major national plan for each country would include all planned expenditure. Everyone likes to point to the undeniable importance of the Cohesion Policy, and many have spoken out against the possible nationalisation of EU funds, but it seems that the Recovery and Resilience Facility model that followed the Covid-19 crisis is proving popular.

In short, the battle of the budget has begun

We still have too little hindsight on cases of “nationalisation” of EU funds to be able to seriously challenge this supposed “rationalisation” and “simplification”. A recent opinion from the Committee of the Regions by Ms. Maupertuis lists the principles that should guide the budget reform, in order to ensure true equality between all regions in terms of access to EU funds. Clearly, if there are “national plans”, the governance of the Funds will have to be reviewed, and authorities at all levels will have to be genuinely involved in design, implementation and assessment, and not just delegate part of their administration!

This month, in partnership with the Local Alliance*, we are publishing an assessment of the involvement of local authorities in drawing up National Plans for the Social Climate Fund. The Fund was set up to reduce the social impact of increased heating and mobility costs due to the inclusion of these two sectors in the Emissions Trading System. However, towns and cities were barely involved in drawing up the plans! How can we ensure that they really tackle energy poverty? Several articles in this newsletter showcase our members’ best practices in this area, and they are only asking to be supported by the Social Climate Fund!

Real governance, active subsidiarity as proposed by the Committee of the Regions, has yet to be invented, and local authorities have some ideas about what it might look like.

We encourage you to discuss this throughout 2025, in order to draw up concrete proposals to be tabled on the European policymakers’ agenda for the future budget.

*The Local Alliance is a coalition made up of 8 leading networks representing local and regional governments – ACR+, CEMR, Climate Alliance, Energy Cities, Eurocities, FEDARENE, ICLEI Europe and POLIS