The European Commission’s proposals for the future EU budget: the place of CLLD/LEADER

As expected, on 16 July 2025, the European Commission published its long awaited proposals for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for the 2028-2034 period.

Overall, the new budget envelop is € 1 985 billion, not dissimilar to the current period 2021-2027 (€1 074 billion in 2018 prices supplemented by the Recovery and Resilience Fund of € 750 billion). But the new proposal significantly simplifies the EU budget structure, consolidating seven current headings into three main headings:

1. Support to Member States via National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPs), where the CAP, Cohesion Policy, and programmes like LEADER will be bundled.
2. Support to Beneficiaries and Businesses under a Competitiveness heading.
3. Support to Partners under the Global Europe heading.

The largest part of the MFF budget (€ 1 062 billion) will be programmed by Member States through National and Regional Partnership Plans (one per Member State) covering economic, social and territorial cohesion, agriculture, rural and maritime prosperity and security. It will comprise the current funding under Cohesion Policy, the Home Policy and the CAP. Such integration is expected to facilitate the planning process and make it more aligned with EU’s common priorities. Enhanced flexibility will allow policies to be adapted to regional and local needs and will leave scope for reaction to unexpected events or disasters. A widespread use of simplified costs and results-based payments will be applied to speed up and simplify delivery.

A hot debate now kicks off on the Commission’s proposals to be followed by formal negotiations with the European Parliament and European Council. We will be presenting contributions from various organisations and experts on how local development is shaping up within the framework of these proposals and challenges arising for CLLD/LEADER.

ELARD: LEADER recognised, but not guaranteed

In an early reaction to the Commission’s proposals ELARD highlighted that in the presentation of the proposals Commissioner Hansen was reassuring about the future of LEADER. But ELARD has commented that “LEADER might be recognised and included in the next framework, but it might be up to Member States to decide whether to use it or not!! Indeed, there is no ring-fenced budget for LEADER-CLLD in the current structure – neither in the official announcements nor in the leaked legislative drafts, that we had a chance to read. This is alarming. Without mandatory earmarking, Member States could choose not to implement LEADER at all. Even with positive mentions, rural development risks disappearing into a vast, undifferentiated pool of national priorities”.

AEIDL: A New Era for Rural Europe: What the 2028–2034 EU Budget Means for Local Development and rural areas

In its initial presentation of the Commission’s proposals, AEIDL highlighted several topics. Its Key Takeaways for Local and Regional Development are:

At the heart of the new MFF are National and Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs), which consolidate nearly all EU funding streams into a single, coherent strategy per Member State. This simplification—from over 540 programming documents to just 27 NRPPs and one Interreg Plan—marks a significant shift toward tailored, place-based investment.

Implications:

• Simplified Access: Local authorities and beneficiaries will navigate fewer bureaucratic hurdles, thanks to harmonised rules and a single funding instrument. Ms Von der Leyen gave the example of the difficulty to build a single kindergarten due to the panoply of no less than 50 EU local development instruments available.
• Strategic Flexibility: it is claimed that NRPPs allow Member States to structure plans according to their own administrative and constitutional setups, ensuring that regional and local needs are prioritised. The devil will be on the detail (the draft Regulations, still to be published) about whether the partnership principle, community led, bottom-up local development is just optional.
• Rule of Law Conditionality: Funding is contingent on compliance with EU rule of law and fundamental rights, reinforcing accountability and transparency.