Ireland to present draft seven-year EU budget on Saturday

Ireland will present a draft seven-year EU budget on Saturday which will go to EU leaders ahead of their summit in Brussels next week, RTÉ News understands.

The eagerly awaited draft will be presented by Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne at a news conference in Brussels.

The next EU budget is the central challenge to Ireland's EU presidency with an intense battle underway between net contributor member states who want a smaller budget, with a greater emphasis on competitiveness and defence, and those countries clamouring to preserve agriculture and cohesion spending.

The so-called Negotiation Box - essentially a draft of the global amount of the budget, with detailed expenditure amounts and ceilings that will be contested by member states in the coming months - is the culmination of weeks of soundings taken by Irish government officials, ministers and Taoiseach Micheál Martin, from national capitals on what their red lines are.

European Council President Antonio Costa, who chairs EU summits, has also been touring capitals.

Despite the intensive diplomacy, both camps have been hardening their positions in recent days.

The original budget proposal from the European Commission in July 2025 foresaw an overall seven-year budget worth €1.9 trillion.

However, the so-called frugal member states - Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Finland and Sweden - wrote to the Irish government on September 29 to ensure that "several hundred billion" will be shaved off that amount when the Negotiation Box is presented to leaders.

The signatories, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said their six countries finance almost 40% of all member states' contributions to the budget, which will run from 2028-2034.

"While net contributors as a whole are in the minority they shoulder around three quarters of the total financing burden," they said.

"It is about political priorities and about whether we can achieve the goal we have jointly set ourselves: a strong and sovereign Europe in an uncertain world," the letter stated.

"To achieve this, the MFF must be fundamentally reformed. We must make choices."

Separately, 17 EU leaders from the so-called Friends of Cohesion group, wrote to the Taoiseach on Friday, urging him to consider the importance of agriculture and cohesion spending.

The letter, seen by RTÉ News, stated that "Cohesion Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy are long-standing policies, but their objectives are as relevant as ever.

"They promote convergence between Member States and regions, strengthen the Single Market and support rural, less developed areas.

"They also contribute to Europe’s competitiveness and food security, while providing tangible support to millions of European citizens and demonstrating the added value of common European spending."

Mr Martin, who will sign off on the draft before its presentation on Saturday, has said reconciling the conflicting camps will be very challenging.

The Government aims to secure overall agreement among national capitals by the end of the Irish presidency this December.

Politically, it is seen as vital to secure agreement before a slew of general elections next year which could return hard-right and eurosceptic parties to power.

The European Parliament will also have to agree some 21 pieces of legislation next year so that EU funds can flow to recipients - such as farmers - from 1 January 2028.

The structure of the budget has changed with the Common Agriculture Policy folded into so-called National Regional Partnership Plans (NRPPs).

The NRPPs will include direct payments and rural development funds, giving national capitals more flexibility in how funding is allocated, but with less of the CAP budget ring-fenced.

CAP funding will also be conditional on compliance with a range of conditions which will apply to the NRPP as a whole.

The letter from 17 Friends of Cohesion prime ministers states that overall cohesion and CAP funding "must be preserved in the next [seven-year budget]."

It states that "these policies already face reductions in real terms under the [European] Commission’s proposal, despite the overall increase in the size of the [budget].

"Reducing them further would not modernise the EU budget; it would only weaken it and risk undermining public support for the European project."

The Irish draft Negotiating Box will also set out what new revenue streams to pay for the budget are politically acceptable to a majority of member states.

The so-called New Own Resources are potential ways of boosting the size of the budget, and to repay debts relating to the EU’s post-Covid recovery fund.

They include proposals to impose a levy on large corporations, a tax on gambling and tobacco, a levy on cryptocurrencies and funds that could be clawed back from the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS).

Germany and others have ruled out joint EU borrowing as a way to meet the cost of an expanded EU budget.