The negotiations on the next Multiannual Financial Framework will be particularly challenging. Brexit, if it finally happens, will leave a major hole in the EU finances, and there will be strong pressure to expand levels of EU spending in areas which were not an EU priority in the past, particularly migration and external security.

As in the last MFF negotiations, there will be a debate on how to enhance the flexibility of the EU budget. While the current MFF introduced new flexibility provisions, the multiple crises affecting the EU in recent years have shown the limits of such provisions and the need to do more to increase the capacity of the EU budget to adapt to unexpected events and changing circumstances.

In this paper, Eulalia Rubio, senior research fellow at the Jacques Delors Institute, analyses the use of flexibility provisions and instruments in the current MFF and highlights ways to enhance flexibility in the post 2020 MFF.

This in-depth analysis was requested by the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets. It was presented at the European Parliament on November 22th, 2017. It is available on our website and on the website of the European Parliament.