The negotiating box (nego-box) is a document prepared by the Council presidency to guide negotiations on the EU's long-term budget. It brings together those elements which are most likely to require political direction and priority-setting from EU leaders.

In December 2025, EU leaders took note of the first nego-box prepared by the Danish presidency and called on incoming presidencies to continue work with the objective to reaching an agreement before the end of 2026.

On 11 June 2026 the Cyprus presidency presented a revised nego-box, with figures, aiming to identify elements for political consideration and facilitate discussions among EU leaders ahead of the June 2026 European Council meeting. Cyprus has tabled a proposal for the upcoming long-term budget cycle of the European Union. The document sets out how the EU's next seven-year budget could be structured.

As explicitly mentioned in the official note from the Council of the EU, the nego-box is not binding on any delegation, and the Presidency continues to be guided by the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. 

The Presidency proposes a total MFF budget of €1,730 billion in the compromise proposal, which broadly retains the structure of the European Commission’s proposal with its four expenditure areas, over the seven-year period. This represents roughly a 2% reduction compared to the Commission's original proposal of €1,763 billion, published in July 2025. The proposed cut/reduction? is mainly affecting the Competitiveness Fund (Heading 2) and Global Europe (Heading 3).

Yet the proposed budget remains still too high for a group of Member States led by Germany, The Netherlands and Austria, which are calling for less spending on legacy EU policies like agriculture and cohesion and more on innovation and competitiveness. On the other side 15 other Member States forming the Friends of Cohesion are defending the established and proven funding system and are resistant to further cuts in the MFF proposal. 

The proposed budget is structured around four headings, replacing the current seven:

• Heading 1 – Cohesion, Agriculture, Rural and Maritime, Prosperity and Security (€942 billion) is by far the largest, covering more than half of the budget. It covers regional and cohesion funds, the Common Agricultural Policy, fisheries, migration and border management, and the repayment of NextGenerationEU borrowing.
• Heading 2 – Competitiveness, Prosperity and Security (€502 billion) covers the new European Competitiveness Fund (€199 billion), Horizon Europe (€149 billion), the Connecting Europe Facility (€69 billion), Erasmus+ (€35 billion), and defence-related spending.
• Heading 3 – Global Europe (€183 billion) finances external action, enlargement, development cooperation, humanitarian aid, and support for Ukraine.
• Heading 4 – Administration (€104 billion)

Whatever its final budget size and structure may be, the next MFF will be far short of addressing the massive financing needs for the green transition, digital transformation, innovation, economic security and strengthening of defence capabilities. Thus, the central question should be the added-value of the MFF:  how it can help to achieve positive transformative results in the EU which Member States would not achieve alone?