EU’s 2028-2034 budget proposes a “Global Europe” fund for enlargement, facing financial and structural challenges.
🔗 Read the article on balcanicaucaso.org
[This is an automatically generated summary, for reference only]
The European Commission’s proposal for the 2028-2034 EU budget allocates increased funding to candidate countries, primarily through a new “Global Europe” fund within the overall nearly two trillion euro budget. This fund consolidates various existing mechanisms and dedicates a specific pillar of €43 billion to “Enlargement and Eastern Neighbourhood,” covering current and potential candidates, as well as partners in Russia and Belarus. The proposal introduces a system linking funding disbursement to agreed-upon reforms for candidate countries. To address the complexity of Ukraine’s needs, its assistance is proposed outside the ordinary EU budget but channeled through Global Europe, with €100 billion allocated to support its reconstruction and accession path. While this aims to simplify external action by creating a flexible mechanism, critics note that enlargement risks becoming just one competing priority within this broader fund, potentially undermining the long-term financial predictability needed for candidate countries’ reforms. Negotiations are underway in the European Parliament and Council regarding this proposal.
