More flexibility needs greater accountability: defence in the 2028-2034 EU budget

The proposed European Union budget for 2028-2034 (the Multiannual Financial Framework, MFF), published by the European Commission in July 2025, foresees a significant increase in, and reorganisation of, EU-level defence-related spending (European Commission, 2025b). However, spending on defence from the EU budget comes with one major constraint: the EU Treaty excludes spending “arising from operations having military or defence implications”, unless EU countries decide unanimously otherwise¹. This does not prohibit all defence-related spending. The EU budget can, for example, support the European defence industry by funding collaborative defence R&D and the expansion of defence-related industrial production capacity, and by supporting common procurement and dual-use transport infrastructure.

This analysis examines how the proposed 2028-2034 MFF integrates defence-related instruments, compares the scale and structure of this proposed spending to the current MFF (2021-2027) and assesses how the budget's accountability framework could be improved. We argue that current accountability rules are insufficient, and greater flexibility and allocation of defence-related funding in the next MFF must go hand-in-hand with improved oversight. While the European Parliament has already adopted its position on the proposed MFF², and EU countries reached a partial agreement in June 2026³, key provisions are still under negotiation and there is an opportunity to strengthen the accountability framework before a final agreement is reached⁴.

Defence funding in the 2028-2034 MFF

Defence-related funding from the EU budget from 2028-2034 would be mostly placed in the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF). The ECF is intended to support innovation investment, from R&D to industrial scale-up and market deployment. This approach would give the European Commission greater scope to direct resources to different policy areas (Hallak, 2025; Jarlebring, 2025).

Within the ECF, defence-related spending sits within an allocation for ‘Resilience and Security, Defence Industry and Space’, which would amount to 56 percent of 2028-2034 ECF funding, or €115.7 billion in 2025 prices (Figure 1). These amounts are indicative rather than fixed maximums, allowing some reallocation within the ECF during implementation. The proposal does not specify how the €115.7 billion would be split between resilience, civil security, defence industry and space.

Figure 1: Defence-related funding in the 2028-2034 MFF proposal, € billions, 2025 prices

^{Source: Bruegel based on European Commission (2025a, 2025b, 2025c) and Pari and Pradier (2025). Note: blue areas indicate defence-related spending. Within Horizon Europe, four percent is allocated to resilience, security, defence industry and space. Under ‘Innovation’ (blue diagonal stripes), defence and dual-use technologies may be funded, but no amount is allocated specifically for this purpose.}

A second, separate defence-relevant component of the proposed MFF is ‘military mobility’ under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). The allocation to military mobility would be €15.8 billion (2025 prices), or about 22 percent of CEF. While the CEF is directed primarily at civilian transport and energy networks, its military-mobility part would co-finance upgrades to transport infrastructure to accommodate both civilian and military traffic⁵ (ECA, 2025). Upgrades can include strengthening roads and bridges and widening or modifying tunnels and underpasses to accommodate military vehicles (see Regulation (EU) 2021/1328).

Finally, Horizon Europe, the EU’s €154.9 billion research and innovation programme, also contains defence-relevant funding (Hallak, 2025). About four percent of its budget from 2028-2034 would be allocated to collaborative research and innovation in resilience, security, the defence industry and space. The European Innovation Council (EIC) – one channel for EU research funding – may also use an approach based on the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which focuses on identifying emerging technologies for military use. This could see the EIC supporting defence and dual-use start-ups, although no specific amount is earmarked for this purpose (European Commission, 2025c).

Comparing defence-relevant funding across MFFs

The proposed 2028-2034 MFF contains a large increase in EU-level defence-relevant spending, both in value and as a share of the total budget. Figure 2 provides a comparison with the 2021-2027 MFF, though this is only approximate. The large resilience and security allocation under the ECF (Figure 1) would be broader than predecessor programmes in 2021-2027 because it would bundle together defence, space, supply-chain resilience and civil industrial security (see Table 1 in the annex). Figure 2 therefore compares the headline value of the ECF resilience and security allocation with an aggregation of the main 2021-2027 programmes⁶.

Figure 2: Defence-relevant funding, 2021-2027 vs 2028-2034 MFFs

^{Source: Bruegel based on European Commission (2021, 2025a, 2025c, 2025d) and Pari and Pradier (2025). Note: The 2021-2027 bar aggregates the EU Space Programme, the European Defence Fund (EDF) and other defence-related programmes grouped under ‘Other’. The bars are not exactly comparable because the 2028-2034 MFF would include funding for objectives that cannot be mapped to programmes in the previous budget.} 

While official communications have talked about a “five-fold increase”⁷ in defence spending, two qualitative differences matter in addition to the increase in value compared to 2021-2027. First, the new resilience and security allocation can be used to fund four objectives, only two of which – EU defence industry and space policy – map closely onto predecessor programmes (Table 1 in the annex). The other two objectives, supply-chain resilience and civil industrial security, go beyond core defence spending (European Commission, 2025a). Second, unlike predecessor programmes, which had dedicated funding, the Commission would be able to transfer funds between ECF priorities during implementation, increasing its discretion over resource allocation (Hallak, 2025; Jarlebring, 2025).

So far, there is relatively little detail on how money will be allocated in 2028-2034. For example, little is known about how much will be allocated to genuine European public goods, such as the strengthening and building-up of a European satellite infrastructure.

The proposed performance framework and its weaknesses

Alongside the MFF, the Commission has proposed an expenditure-tracking and performance framework (European Commission, 2025e). Its purpose is to standardise how the Commission monitors outputs and results from EU spending, reports performance to the European Parliament and EU countries, and conducts subsequent evaluations. For the resilience and security allocation, the framework identifies five policy areas, each with its own actions, outputs and intended results (Figure 3 and Figure A1). Defence is only one of these areas, within which two of the five proposed result indicators would measure outputs rather than results (Figure 3). These two indicators – the value of common procurement and the value of military-mobility equipment procured – would describe what a programme finances directly, rather than the effects it intends to produce (Table A2). This is less useful in evaluating performance than genuine indicators of outputs (Darvas et al, 2026).

On the supply side, the proposed MFF aims to increase the production capacity of companies in the European defence industry (Figure 3). The proposal identifies several potential forms of support, including expanding production facilities, acquiring machinery/inputs and cross-border industrial partnerships. However, it does not specify which actions will be prioritised or how much funding each would receive (European Commission, 2025a). The Commission’s performance framework would monitor the number of recipient enterprises and defines its goal as achieving an increase in EU defence production capacity. The process for selecting enterprises, a key determinant of whether public money makes a difference in terms of output, remains as yet undefined.

On the demand side, the proposal would seek to promote collaborative defence procurement (Figure 3). Under the proposed ECF, a procurement agent would be able to conclude a contract on behalf of a group of participating countries, and the EU may support the action with up to 25 percent of the estimated value of the common procurement (European Commission, 2025a). In the current MFF, the European Defence Industry Reinforcement through common Procurement Act (EDIRPA, Regulation (EU) 2023/2418) offers grants to offset the “cooperation costs” associated with organising joint procurement. The proposal for 2028-2034 does not yet specify whether support for joint defence procurement would remain limited to such costs. The 25 percent figure establishes a ceiling on EU support but does not clarify what the contribution may finance.

The Commission would monitor the number of joint-procurement projects and seek to increase the total value of defence equipment that is jointly procured. Here, we do not assess whether promotion of joint procurement is a good use of EU funds, nor do we want to argue that joint procurement would be an appropriate performance indicator. Since the target values and budget allocations are not yet known, it is too early to assess the exact value for money that could come from the proposed spending. In principle, subsidising cross-border procurement can be seen as measure to offset the domestic industrial policies and vested interests that currently play major roles in procurement choices.

Figure 3: Defence in the ‘Resilience, defence industry and space’ allocation

^{Source: Bruegel based on European Commission (2025e, Annex I).}

The defence area under the proposed resilience and security allocation would, among other things, fund the adaptation of infrastructure to military requirements and the purchase or retrofitting of military transport assets. It would also support projects involving defence companies in strategic partner countries, including Ukraine. The framework would monitor the number of participating firms by country and their average growth (European Commission, 2025e). While the growth metric is not broken down in the proposal, it offers a more meaningful result indicator than the number of beneficiaries. More broadly, evaluation remains primarily the responsibility of the Commission, and the proposal does not require an independent assessment of defence expenditures.

These accountability and evaluation weaknesses are not new. Under the current MFF, supply-side objectives are pursued through grant-based instruments, notably the European Defence Fund and the Act in Support of Ammunition Production (ASAP, Regulation (EU) 2023/1525)⁸. The evidence does not show whether these policies have achieved their intended effects (European Commission, 2024, 2025f). 

On the demand side, EDIRPA provides grants to encourage joint procurement. The basic logic of subsidising joint procurement is to offset national vested interests that drive national preference. Joint procurement should help reduce unit costs by creating economies of scale. No evaluation of the instrument is yet available⁹ and it remains unclear whether intended outcomes are being achieved. To prevent these evaluation gaps from being carried over into the proposed MFF, independent assessment of defence expenditure should be included as part of the new performance framework.

High degrees of accountability are desirable in any case. In this case specifically, they would reassure EU countries that have been so far closely involved in the shaping of spending programmes that under the 2028-2034 proposal would be unified under a joint umbrella, that the EU budget is well spent. Since the new architecture gives the Commission more discretion over implementation, clear targets should be established during implementation to ensure the Commission is held to account on delivery.

References

Darvas, Z., M.S. Lappe, B. Sangers and J. Zettelmeyer (2026) ‘National plans, regional voices: cohesion policy in the next European Union budget’, Policy Brief 06/2026, Bruegel, available at https://doi.org/10.64153/UDNN6182

European Commission (2021a) Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1328 of 10 August 2021 specifying the infrastructure requirements applicable to certain categories of dual-use infrastructure actions pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2021/1153, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2021/1328/oj/eng

European Commission (2021) The EU’s 2021–2027 long-term budget and NextGenerationEU: Facts and figures, Publications Office of the European Union, available at https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2761/808559

European Commission (2024) ‘Report on the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2023/1525 on supporting ammunition production (ASAP)’, COM(2024) 296 final, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52024DC0296

European Commission (2025a) ‘Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing the European Competitiveness Fund (‘ECF’), including the specific programme for defence research and innovation activities’, COM(2025) 555 final, available at https://commission.europa.eu/publications/european-competitiveness-fund_en 

European Commission (2025b) ‘A dynamic EU Budget for the priorities of the future – The Multiannual Financial Framework 2028–2034’, COM(2025) 570 final/2, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025DC0570R(01)

European Commission (2025c) ‘Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing Horizon Europe, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, for the period 2028–2034’, COM(2025) 543 final, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025PC0543R(01)

European Commission (2025d) ‘Proposal for a Council Regulation laying down the multiannual financial framework for the years 2028 to 2034’, COM(2025) 571 final, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025PC0571

European Commission (2025e) ‘Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a budget expenditure tracking and performance framework and other horizontal rules for Union programmes and activities’, COM(2025) 545 final, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025PC0545

European Commission (2025f) ‘Interim evaluation of the European Defence Fund’, SWD(2025) 151 final, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52025SC0151

ECA (2025) ‘EU military mobility: Full speed not reached due to design weaknesses and obstacles en route’, Special Report 04/2025, European Court of Auditors, available at https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/publications?ref=sr-2025-04 

Hallak, I. (2025) ‘European competitiveness fund’, Briefing, European Parliamentary Research Service, available at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2025)779225

Jarlebring, J. (2025) ‘One Fund to Rule Them All’, European Policy Analysis 2025:13epa, Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies (SIEPS), available at https://sieps.se/en/publications/2025/one-fund-to-rule-them-all/

Pari, M. and S. Pradier (2025) ‘EU budget 2028–2034: overview of the Commission’s proposal’, Briefing, European Parliamentary Research Service, available at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2025)775885

Annex

Figure A1: Number of ‘Resilience, defence industry and space’ indicators, 2028-2034 MFF

^{Source: Bruegel based on European Commission (2025e). Note: actions are policies funded under each policy area. Output indicators capture what is directly delivered, while result indicators capture the results of that support. ‘Risks’ include civil protection and disaster preparedness against natural hazards.}

Table 1: ‘Resilience and Security, Defence Industry and Space’ spending objectives 

^{Source: Bruegel based on European Commission (2025a). Note: only the EU defence industry and EU space systems and space policy objectives map closely onto the main predecessor programmes used in the 2021-2027 comparison. EDIP = European Defence Industry Programme.}

Table 2: Performance framework in the defence sub-policy area 

^{Source: Bruegel based on European Commission (2025e). Note: intervention fields are the main types of action funded under each sub-policy area. Output indicators capture what is directly delivered, while result indicators capture the results of that support. The text refers to these as policy actions, outputs and outcome measures.}