Lettre à U. Von Der Leyen au sujet du CFP

Brussels, 30 October 2025

The European Parliament rejects the National and Regional Partnership Plans proposal as it stands and demands an amended proposal to start negotiations

Dear President von der Leyen,

We recall our position voted in the plenary of the European Parliament in May 2025, that the “‘one national plan per Member State’ approach with the Recovery and Resilience Facility model as a blueprint, should not be the basis for shared management spending post-2027". This is unfortunately and clearly what the Commission has proposed. The European Parliament cannot accept this as a basis for starting negotiations.

Therefore, the European Parliament has the following key demands for an amended proposal of the European Commission:

Against re-nationalisation: We are against a Union à la carte, with centralised national decisions overlooking EU priorities and undermining EU added value. The National and Regional Partnership Plan (NRPP) Regulation as it stands - with large amounts of unallocated funds - would lead to fragmentation, de-solidarization and the financing of 27 disparate national plans. The current proposal does not guarantee coverage for all categories of European regions, leads to lack of predictability and distorts the EU single market, as well as the level playing field in the agricultural sector. The amounts allocated to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and Cohesion policy represent a substantial reduction in real terms.

Decoupling policies: Stand-alone policies on agriculture and cohesion, fisheries and maritime, social policies and home affairs, are necessary, with distinct financial envelopes governed by dedicated regulations, including for proper budgetary accountability. Cohesion policy and CAP need a modern vision, based on innovation, competitiveness, sustainability and energy efficiency, with the view to deepen the single market, promote convergence and reduce inequality, in line with their core, Treaty-based, essence. Pooling these policies together dilutes their distinct role. Dedicated budgets per policy would ensure more predictability and certainty for beneficiaries and would be further enhanced with ring-fenced amounts for specific policy priorities.

Role of regions and local authorities: Cohesion policy cannot be exclusively designed and managed by national central governments. The role of regions and local authorities must therefore be strengthened and much better articulated in the legal provisions of the proposal. We need direct and continuous negotiations between regions and the Commission to be legally mandatory, in full respect of the partnership principle and the principle of subsidiarity, consolidating and promoting a well-established multilevel governance system and proper shared management, with appropriate safeguards, in full respect for each Member State’s territorial organisation.

For the Common Agricultural Policy, a level playing field needs to be preserved for farmers instead of the current proposal with minimal common rules. The relevant articles of the CAP now included in the NRPP Regulation should be brought back into a dedicated legislative framework (governed by dedicated regulation(s)). This legislative framework should include the CAP Strategic Plans and clear rules are needed for their elaboration.

Ensuring the European Parliament's powers and role: The European Parliament should be involved in the approval and modification of the Member States’ plans via delegated act, as well as in the decision-making regarding all programming of flexibility amounts and adjustments to evolving needs or new priorities. In addition, the European Parliament must be given full decision- making role in the so-called ‘political steering mechanism’ that is designed to steer the annual budgetary procedure, in a legally binding and clear way. The budgetary nomenclature needs to be much more granular and clearly linked to general and specific objectives of spending to allow meaningful decision- making, scrutiny and visibility of all operational expenditure. The European Parliament needs to take part in the decisions regarding the mobilisation of the EU Facility and this should be anchored in the legislation.

The Conditionality Regulation and the compliance with EU values must apply to the entire EU budget, including to the future Cohesion and CAP national plans, and not be duplicated in parallel instruments. Rather than creating overlapping tools, the Commission should be more proactive and coherent in the enforcement of the rule-of-law toolbox; the provision on the respect of the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be guaranteed and the adoption of any measures following non-compliance should follow the same mechanism as under the current Common Provisions Regulation. There should be a clear link between the Rule of Law report recommendations and NRPPs. Breaches of Rule of Law should, as a principle, lead to automatic decommitments and we insist that there shall be no reshuffling of EU funds suspended due to Rule of Law breaches. The link between national plans and the application of both the Conditionality Regulation and the Financial Regulation must be fully ensured through cross-references to the respective regulations.

Inherent democratic deficit: There is an inherent democratic deficit in the "cash-for-reforms" model, given the lack of oversight by the European Parliament - as budgetary and discharge authority - and by national or regional elected bodies. Unless linked to the Rule of Law and fundamental rights, reforms must be directly linked to the investments that are made. National-level reforms should not condition sub-national investments, unless they are clearly linked; pairing local investments with macroeconomic reforms would effectively eliminate this link. The generalised implementation model of "financing not linked to costs" should be limited as much as possible as it lacks transparency and prevents proper audit and scrutiny in the implementation of EU funds.

As the current proposal on the NRPP does not take our core requests into consideration, it cannot constitute a basis for negotiations. We therefore look forward to seeing our key requests meaningfully reflected in an amended proposal of the European Commission, which would allow the negotiations with the European Parliament to move forward.

Yours sincerely,

Manfred Weber EPP Group Chair

Siegfried Mureșan EPP Group Vice-Chair and Co-Rapporteur the Post-2027 MFF in the European Parliament

Iratxe García Pérez S&D Group President

Carla Tavares Co-Rapporteur of the Post-2027 MFF in the European Parliament

Valérie Hayer Renew Europe Group President

Fabienne Keller Shadow Rapporteur of the Post-2027 MFF in the European Parliament

Terry Reintke and Bas Eickhout Greens/EFA Group Co-Presidents

Rasmus Nordqvist Shadow Rapporteur of the Post-2027 MFF in the European Parliament