What changed

3.2.2026

PA_NonLegBud

Mr Johan Van Overtveldt

OPINION

Chair

The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its motion for a resolution:

Committee on Budgets

1. Calls for an ambitious EU budget for 2027, reflecting the challenges facing Europe, including the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and hybrid attacks on Member States’ critical infrastructure; underlines the urgent need to enhance the competitiveness of European industry and the need for investment in the defence industry, preparedness and cybersecurity, combined with strong support for the eastern border regions of the EU that are most directly impacted by the war, as well as sustained support for Ukraine, including through the integration of the Ukrainian defence technological and industrial base into EU instruments, in particular the European Defence Fund and the European Defence Industry Programme;

Subject: Opinion on the guidelines for the 2027 Budget - Section III (2025/2246(BUI))

2. Recalls the need to secure Europe’s energy supply in a fast deteriorating geopolitical context; stresses the need to rapidly phase out all remaining energy imports from Russia and to overall reduce the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels; calls, therefore, for continued investment in resilient energy infrastructure and in renewable and clean energy production and supply chains in Europe to deepen the EU energy market and deliver affordable and secure energy to European citizens and businesses; calls for a renewed focus on the energy efficiency first principle by scaling up support for energy efficiency measures; calls for a significant increase in funding for the Connecting Europe Facility for energy infrastructure to improve and expand cross-border energy interconnectivity, smart energy grids and energy storage and to boost EU-based supply chains; highlights the need for both distribution and transmission grids to be further developed in Europe to achieve a more competitive, independent and complete energy union, for which sufficient funding is needed;

Dear Mr Van Overtveldt,

3. Calls for a boost in investment to support EU industrial competitiveness and high-quality jobs and to facilitate strategic autonomy and decarbonisation, while securing EU supply chains for strategic sectors by prioritising the development of the EU’s circular economy and improving access to critical raw materials, as set out in the RESourceEU Action Plan; notes the importance of cooperation and partnerships with like-minded countries on raw materials to secure more diversified supply chains to meet the EU’s growing demand; stresses, furthermore, the need for adequate funding to stay the course regarding the European Green Deal and the Clean Industrial Deal and to achieve the EU’s climate, environment and energy goals, including the targets set out in the Renewable Energy Directive, the Energy Efficiency Directive and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive; recalls the report by Mario Draghi on EU competitiveness of 9 September 2024 and emphasises the need for the post-2027 EU budget to focus on strategic priorities and scale up support for strategic investments, and on simplified access to funding;

Under the procedure referred to above, the Committee on Foreign Affairs has been asked to submit an opinion to your committee. The Committee considered the matter with Matjaž Nemec as Rapporteur for opinion for the 2027 budgetary procedure and adopted the opinion in the form of a letter at its meeting of 28 January 2026 as annexed.

4. Insists on the need to support fundamental and applied research, foster collaborative research and facilitate the scale-up and commercialisation of research results; deplores the persisting funding gap for innovation in private and public financing and calls for a more ambitious contribution in Horizon Europe funding; recalls that 2027 is the final year of the Horizon Europe programme and the proposed draft budget should therefore make use of all remaining appropriations, including the additional allocations for Horizon Europe stemming from Article 5 of Council Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2020/2093 of 17 December 2020 laying down the multiannual financial framework for the years 2021 to 2027, and from the joint political statement on the re-use of decommitted funds in Horizon Europe; restates that any and all available decommitments stemming from Horizon Europe should be made available to the programme again; calls for maintaining stable funding for the ITER project;

Yours sincerely,

5. Acknowledges the increasing challenges faced by the international research community, especially regarding climate, social and gender research; welcomes, in this respect, the Choose Europe for Science initiative; calls on the Commission to take urgent action to secure long-term accessibility to high-quality scientific data for the international research community, including climate, socio-economic and gender-related data; recalls that Parliament insisted that 45 % of the Horizon Europe Cluster 2 ‘Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society’ budget should be spent on the cultural and creative industries; notes that this percentage has not been achieved so far; calls, in this regard, on the Commission to increase funding for Cluster 2 and consider a revision to the 2026-27 work programme to make an increased amount available for cultural and creative industry projects; notes that the Financial Regulation allows for placing appropriations in reserve if the budgetary authority has significant concerns about the implementation of those appropriations;

David McAllister

6. Requests increased support from the EU budget for small and medium-sized enterprises, mid-caps and startups, including greater assistance for them to scale up and compete globally, particularly through the European Innovation Council;

ANNEX

7. Stresses that significant investments are needed to address the EU’s connectivity gap and to achieve the 2030 Digital Decade targets; calls for a stronger focus on increasing European technological sovereignty, specifically through the creation of EuroStack; highlights the need to allocate sufficient financial and human resources to ensure the robust enforcement of the digital acquis in order to strengthen the EU’s resilience; calls strongly for the EU, therefore, to maintain the same approach in tackling foreign interference, addressing the dangers of biased algorithms, and safeguarding transparency, accountability and the integrity of the digital public space;

The Committee on Foreign Affairs calls on the Committee on Budgets, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following into its motion for a resolution:

8. Requests sufficient funding for European space programmes, including for skills development, considering the space sector’s importance for the competitiveness of the EU economy and for its defence capabilities;

1. Notes that the 2027 EU budget will be the last budget during the current multiannual financial framework (MFF); reiterates its view that the funding provided under Heading 6, even after the revision in 2024, has been insufficient to cover the needs related to the various challenges in the European neighbourhood, both East and South, to support crisis-affected regions where the needs are greatest and to invest in partnerships; stresses that a robust external budget is essential to engage effectively with partners worldwide to address the root causes of instability, migration and countering terrorism; underlines the need to strengthen the geopolitical position of the EU; underlines in particular the need for intensified efforts to finance the urgent financial needs of Ukraine;

9. Calls for adequate funding and staffing for EU agencies and bodies in the policy areas of industry, research, energy, space and cybersecurity, so that they can cope with new tasks and support skills development.

2. Urgently and unequivocally calls for a substantial and sustained increase in EU funding for humanitarian aid, in order to respond effectively to growing global needs and escalating crises; emphatically underscores the indispensable role of the EU’s humanitarian aid policies and instruments;

3. Demands strengthened, predictable, and long-term support for civil society organisations, recognising their frontline role in delivering life-saving assistance, fostering resilience, and defending democratic values;

4. Insists to ensure that all EU external actions funding systematically addresses the specific needs, rights, and protection of women and girls, while actively promoting gender equality;

5. Stresses the need to ensure the continuity, predictability and adequacy of funding under Heading 6 for the Eastern Neighbourhood; underlines in particular the strategic importance of sustained and increased financial support for Ukraine and Moldova and warns that insufficient funding risks undermining stability, democratic progress and the EU’s credibility as a geopolitical actor in the region; recalls that support for the Georgian civil society should continue regardless of the current freezing of funding to the Georgian government;

6. Calls for enhanced political, economic and sectoral cooperation with Central Asian partner countries, including through increased and better-targeted funding under Heading 6; highlights the growing strategic relevance of Central Asia for the Union’s connectivity, energy security, critical raw materials supply and regional stability.

7. Underlines the need to ensure a balanced allocation of resources between the Southern and Eastern Neighbourhoods in 2027 to support political, economic and social reforms in the region; highlights in particular the pressing need to contribute significantly to the reconstruction of Gaza and to provide additional humanitarian and economic assistance in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria; stresses that strengthening the Palestinian Authority and supporting the West Bank are fundamental prerequisites for a sustainable long-term peace process; calls for continued financial support for Jordan, noting its role as a stable partner in securing regional security and the Union’s interests; recalls that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) has up to now been the principal humanitarian assistance structure in Gaza and the West Bank as well as an essential service provider in the region and therefore possesses the unique infrastructure required to deliver vital services across the region;

8. Welcomes that the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans and the new Facility for Moldova as well as the Ukraine Facility provided considerable additional funding to enlargement countries in addition to the important main financing through the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) III; insists that the implementation of these facilities must strictly adhere to the approved reform matrix to ensure consistency and tangible impact; underlines that the Reform Agendas, which beneficiaries need to develop, are a promising instrument to speed up transformation and compliance with EU norms; stresses that the 2027 budget must provide targeted support to help national and local authorities in enlargement countries adapt to the revised architecture of the forthcoming MFF, specifically by enhancing administrative capacity to manage pre-accession funds under the new delivery models; calls on the Commission, in the interest of a successful accession process to strictly apply the conditionalities enshrined in the facilities, based on a merit-based approach and tangible reform process; calls on the Commission to withhold funds, either temporarily or indefinitely, if those funds would contribute to the budgets of governments whose actions are significantly undermining the country’s progress towards European integration, particularly regarding democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms; emphasises that the reversibility of funding is an essential safeguard of the enlargement process;

9. Stresses the need to provide the Directorate-General for Enlargement and the Eastern Neighbourhood (DG ENEST), the Directorate-General for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf (DG MENA) and the European External Action Service (EEAS) with increased financial and human resources for the absolutely necessary strengthening of the EU’s visibility and geopolitical position in the world by means of, among others, enhanced digital diplomacy, the fight against disinformation and foreign interference, promoting peace and security, long-term stability and development, human rights and EU values; notes that the structural shift towards geographic programming requires a corresponding organisational reinforcement within EU Delegations; underlines the need to provide adequate resources to both the EEAS and the Commission for strategic communication and countering disinformation and hybrid threats; highlights the need that the funding is commensurate with the role that the Union expects all delegations to fulfil on the ground; notes, furthermore, that the EEAS, with 144 delegations worldwide, cannot be assessed according to the same logic as that applied to European institutions in Brussels and Luxembourg; urges therefore the Commission and the Council not to apply the 2 % logic to the EEAS.

ANNEX: DECLARATION OF INPUT

The rapporteur for opinion declares under hisher exclusive responsibility that heshe did not include in hisher opinion input from interest representatives falling within the scope of the Interinstitutional Agreement on a mandatory transparency register, or from representatives of public authorities of third countries, including their diplomatic missions and embassies, to be listed in this Annex pursuant to Article 8 of Annex I to the Rules of Procedure.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION BY THE COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

25.2.2026

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

55

17

11

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL BY THE COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

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